‘Internet privacy people shuddering’

“Today is the day internet privacy people are shuddering,” Jules Polonetsky, co-founder of the Washington think-tank Future of Privacy Forum said at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

“Today is the day that Google are consolidating 60 of its privacy policies into one. It means that one day all of Google’s data might be unified.

We’ve seen this cycle over and over again. It’s very alarming. People have been happy to turn over their consolidated data to Apple, for example, lining up, killing each other to get the latest Apple device, happy to be marketed to by Apple, who have captured all their personal, buying data.

“The same could happen with information given to Google.”

He and five other panellists at a session on data privacy, debated the way in which internet-related firms are capturing and sharing data about the public. The two most important public concerns are security of finances and reputation.

“Consumers are less concerned about being marketed to or advertised to,” Ilana Westerman, CEO, Create with Context said.

“The biggest thing consumers fear is that their information is being combined. They say, ‘Why are all these pieces of data about me coming together?’

“People don’t have a large awareness that companies are storing data on them and that they are selling or sharing that data. It’s OK for Facebook to know my age, my nationality, and maybe my religion and political beliefs. It’s OK for Amazon to know my credit card details, but not my religion or political beliefs.”

John Montgomery, the chairman of the Association of American Advertising Agencies’ Privacy Committee, gave audience members, mostly professionals and analysts from the mobile industry, advice about the use of language in marketing. “Don’t use words like profiling, tracking, behavioural targeting. These words sound great to geeks, but they sound creepy to consumers. They sound like Minority Report,” he said, referring to the science fiction film. “It’s exacerbating the situation. Lets use words like measurement and insight.”

Alex Fowler, global privacy and public policy lead at web browser Mozilla, highlighted the initiatives that should be promoted: 7.2% of its users and 20% of its Firefox on Android users, have turned on the firm’s “do not track” application, which prevents information being gathered about a user’s browsing history.