Facebook Finally Faces Public Scrutiny over Use/Abuse of Personal Data

Facebook is just one of thousands of organizations that collect and use/abuse our personal information. However, with over 2 billion users worldwide it rightfully is the poster child for what is good and bad about much of what happens in our increasingly online world. The misuse of personal data relating to electoral politics manipulations in the U.S. and elsewhere specifically but in other ways generally, and the failure to take any responsibility to curb the dissemination of “fake news” and inflammatory hateful speech, puts the company at the center of one of the most consequential public policy challenges of our times. The spotlight on Facebook has justifiably led to an urgency for policy makers and we individually to address the precipitous decent into what has been called the “Post-Privacy Era.” This is really, really, really, important. I would argue the justifiable concerns over net neutrality pale in comparison.

What happens with our personal information has major ramifications for us in every entity and individual we interact with now, in the past and going forward. In fact, if you want to have nightmares, the Rossen Report, How to find and delete the data Facebook gathers on you, recently aired on NBC’s Today Show, is just the ticket for sleepless nights. It is an absolute must see and read. I hope that it will force you to visit your Facebook settings and history. If you desire, since you are reading this online, review it right now before proceeding.

What is revealed in the Rossen Report is that even those of us who thought we knew what happened when we agreed to the voluminous terms and conditions of websites and social media “services,” which we probably never had the time and energy to fully digest, should have been more inquisitive. Download your Facebook archives to understand why. 

At a minimum we certainly should have been much more circumspect when we clicked “Agreed.” We have given away a lot more than we likely bargained for. We have done so having swallowed the pabulum that “customer convenience” and “ease-of-use” were a good deal. This is not to minimize in any way the transformational and beneficial value of the Internet and its value-added capabilities.  Rather, my objective is to shine a light on whether we actually are getting a good deal. It is my contention we are far from it.

If nothing else, it appears as Bob Dylan recorded back in 1964, “The Times They are a changin.” Read the lyrics at the provided link. To say they are prophetic would be a gross understatement.

For those of you who have followed my musings over the last decade on personal information issues, you may wish to jump down to the immodest proposal section. For those of you who have not, I beg indulgence. This requires some context. I will attempt to be brief.

Some background, please

My interest/obsession goes back 40 years. When I started my telecom career, service provider use and misuse of Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) was an issue for a variety of reasons. However, the fact is that this has been a cause célèbre since telephony’s beginnings. For instance, did you know that first electromechanical switching system, the Strowger Switch, came about in 1891?  Undertaker Almon Strowger was fed up with operators, his competitor’s wife in particular, intentionally manually not routing calls to his funeral home. In response, he invented a work around. Cut out operator discretion in call routing.     

Now fast forward to the beginnings of commercialization of worldwide web. This was before Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc. I had the privilege of working with Bell Labs on a concept they internally called “Organic Persona.” Bell Labs wanted to know, based on their belief in the inexorable move of commerce and much of our personal and professional lives online, what would be truly valuable in the future. The answer was clear. Our personal information—name, rank and serial numbers, and also what we bookmarked, sites we visited, things we bought, friends we made, places we’d been or were at, and more—all would become not just valuable but invaluable. As the time we spent virtually increased exponentially so would the value.   

Many of the questions at that time resonate today. They still revolve around how to create and control our emerging multiple online personae. How many do we need? What information in the persona should we protect versus permit service providers to use to provide better services? What information to share with friends, family, business partners, etc.? What should the best business model for commercialization of what is our digital profiles? Who would ultimately succeed in optimizing the opportunity and gain the trust of user communities and ecosystem partners?

The early conclusions were that whoever hosted organic personae, what I later called “Virtual Me” (V.ME for short), would win. Since this was Bell Labs, the goal was to enable telecom companies to be the primary beneficiaries of maximizing the burgeoning value being created in the evolving online world.  We all know how that worked out. The telecom companies missed the boat while the value of the information has accelerated over time.  

This was not surprising. To paraphrase broadcast media pioneer Barry Diller when he was asked years ago about the future, “to believe incumbents will dominate the information and communications industries in the future is like believing in the past that railroad and barge companies would dominate air travel because they are transportation companies.” Let this serve as a warning to those who think today’s colossal tech companies are invincible. They can, and history says likely will be, had. Just ask Microsoft and IBM.        

Before getting into the challenge of what the meaning of permission is, and what permission could/may look like and be used for in the future, it is also useful to understand the business context for why we are at a critical juncture.  

At a high level, the way to think about and fear the collection and monetization of our personal information finds its roots in futurist Alvin Toffler’s vision of over four decades ago. He predicted that ultimately markets would devolve to markets of one. 

It was Toffler’s belief successful companies in the future would have to customize and personalize their offerings to extreme levels. These efforts would be based on collection, analyzing and applying data.  Little did he know how much data could/would be collected. 

We have moved beyond mere likes/dislikes. Readily available, e.g., what Facebook and others know about us, are our personal and transactional behaviors, detailed psychographics associated with specific demographics, contact information about our friends, the places we go and people we meet, and a myriad of other personal attributes. The objective for organizations is to build more and more perfect profiles to “best serve” what are becoming true markets of one.

What has the Internet wrought? At its essence, the profound impact of the Internet from a transactional perspective is that it fundamentally and permanently altered the historic buyer/seller relationship. Historically, sellers always had the upper hand. In telecom, this meant, “any phone so long as it was black.” In computing, it meant it had to be “IBM compatible.” 

The profound change is that buyers now have instantaneous detailed information about a multiplicity of purchasing options. They also have the added ability to express their opinions in ways that can positively and negatively move markets. In a few instants, they can literally and figuratively make or break brands. Markets now are customer-driven.

From this perspective, what Big Data and associated sophisticated analytics represent is sellers trying to catch up to buyers in terms of having the best available information about the other side of the transaction. For sellers, the more perfect the profile the better to provide for current needs and anticipate future ones, including ones we did not know we have. For buyers, we need to better appreciate the phrase “buyers beware!”

Note: IoT is only going to make the construction of more perfect profiles that much more detailed if we let it. This is profiling 2.0 and could make electoral targeting look simplistic. YIKES! This is why the sensitivity on the Facebook controversy. It is not merely about electoral manipulation.

The exposure of the types of information they and others have on us and share with others in all aspects of our business and personal lives is the reason for the huge fuss. Attention must and will be paid.

An Immodest Proposal: sharing the wealth, a golden opportunity

What happens with public policy here and abroad to Facebook and all of the companies collecting and sharing highly detailed information about us is problematic. This is an instance where apologies are actually unacceptable. What my wife and I told our children when they did something bad was, “We know you are sorry. You are sorry you got caught, and not necessarily about what you did. Now change your behavior!” 

We live in an age where more perfect profiles are the cornerstones of multi-billion-dollar business models. They are optimized for attracting massive numbers of users, and mining and monetizing as much personal information as possible. Hence, believing the industry can regulate itself is a completely unrealistic dream.

This is why Facebook has been so reluctant to apologize, slow to change the ease at which we can delete most if not all of our personal information and has been less than enthusiastic about having CEO Mark Zuckerberg testify before legislators in the U.S. and UK. The truth is, as we have seen in the pummeling of their stock price, the belief that the halcyon days of public policy benign neglect are over.

Whether this means the likes of Facebook are recognized as publishers instead of platforms, or are subject to more strenuous requirements as next generation utilities is a matter of power politics. Predictions in these instances are perilous. The golden rule, “he who has the gold rules,” usually holds true. However, there are exceptions. I will pass on predicting.

Putting aside policy challenges, what if there were a different business model to compete with the current one? 

Tech company stock market valuations validate that our personal information is the real gold. This raises a question. If the monetization of our personal information is so valuable, aren’t we getting a raw deal from those exploiting our personal information? Billions for them and crumbs for everyone else!

A rough analogy might be helpful. This is not unlike the contention of student athletes at big universities playing major sports like Football and Basketball that they are under-compensated for the riches they produce for their educational institutions. A “free education” in the eyes of many is hardly recognition for the wealth produced by athletes for their institutions of higher learning. This is akin to our giving up what should be near, and particularly dear to us emotionally and financially. Is our personal information, whether at rest or on the go, in return for access to information and people worth so little? It seems like a case of “let them eat cake.” Unfortunately, we have all been grateful instead of outraged. We need to think again.

What if XYZ company appeared whose terms and conditions were that in exchange for permission to use customer-defined and controlled personal information we would receive a piece of the action? Think of this as something like the loyalty programs cash givebacks offered by financial services companies. The value of the giveback would increase directly in proportion to the amount of information for which permission was granted for collection, analysis and sharing. In short, online advertisers would get the info they wanted, the service provider would still get significant compensation, and we would get what amounts to a meaningful referral fee. 

I am not naïve enough to believe those who have counted on our unbridled permission and compliance to abide by their obfuscated terms and conditions to make billions will embrace this idea. There is too much at stake. As an indicator, watch the arguments over the definitions of permission, and how permissions will be executed and enforced. This is going to get ugly very fast. 

A subject for another day will be the role that anonymity is going to play in all of this. A company that not only reimburses us, but is totally transparent about who or what we are interacting with (why artificial intelligence is such a hot subject) could have tremendous impact with customers who put a premium on value and trust.  My suspicion, based on consumer research by multiple sources, is those looking for better value and greater trustworthiness (privacy and transactional transparency) would be willing to pay a premium for rewards and peace of mind. 

Interestingly, all of this is doable. We are painfully aware that tech companies, if they were so inclined, have all of the tools needed to gather personal information and mete it out according to our dictates. They also have the ability, while admittedly it can never be failsafe, to validate and present to us who and what we are interacting with. Furthermore, they can protect our personal data and all of the session data for auditing and compliance reasons. 

As noted, are those in the social media business likely to do this? I reiterate that this is highly unlikely. What I do believe is that the time is ripe for a proof of concept for testing the idea that paying me for my information in a trusted/trustworthy non-anonymous environment is now. 

Note to Facebook and others who might be willing to test the waters: I know you already know much more than you should about me, especially without what I would consider reasonable transparency and compensation. I am willing to share my deeper insights on this subject. You obviously know how to reach me.