Privacy

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Facebook Privacy Settings Confusing You? There’s an App for That.

May 19, 2010 in Advertising | No comments

Of course there is.  There’s an app for damn near everything.  So given the rising chorus of complaints over Facebook changing it’s privacy settings with the onset of Open Graph, it’s only natural that someone would step into the breech with a digital solution.

That someone is ReclaimPrivacy.org, a shareware app written by a JavaScript developer who takes his own online privacy seriously, hiding his name and only offering that his full-time gig is running Olark: a lightweight app for websites that provides online chat capabilities.  On Reclaim Privacy’s simple page, they publish their full privacy policy:

“Our privacy policy is not long:

  • we never see your Facebook data
  • we never share your personal information”

Impressive.  Anyway, once you drag the app to your browser menubar, you open Facebook’s privacy settings then run the program.  Using a simple Red-Yellow-Green warning system, it suggests where you might want to change your settings.  The whole process is remarkably easy.  And reassuring, even if the cow is already out of the barn, so to speak.

Facebook has been under withering scrutiny lately as people rebel against founder Mark Zuckerberg’s silly statement that ‘privacy is no longer a social norm.’  He’s right, but he’s a fool for announcing that.

But 400 million Facebook members who don’t understand that nothing is free in this world and that hosting the world’s largest social party runs up enormous costs are being equally foolish, or at least willfully ignorant.  Facebook’s only asset is data, data we all agreed to sign over when we signed up.  For an insightful assessment of Facebook’s privacy follies, read this article B.L. Ochman wrote for Advertising Age.

If marketers learn anything from Zuckerberg’s troubles, it should be the singular value heavy web users place on transparency.  Because that can be so easily abused.

By Dennis Ryan, CCO, Element 79

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Is This Progress? Contextual, Behavioral Messaging Comes To Spam.

March 11, 2010 in Advertising | 1 comment

New techniques in behavioral targeting raise privacy issues very worthy of debate. Some might think this kind of thing is limited only to deep-pocketed, multi-national marketers. Au contraire…

As anyone who’s ever posted a blog realizes, the comments section attracts Spammers, or more specifically, their automated spambots.  These annoying apps rove the web, looking for space to post paragraphs filled with endless variations of  ”CHEAP VIAGRA!”  In the year and half that I’ve been writing this weekly blog, a little filter Plugin from Akismet has stopped over 3,000 spams.

But the spammers seem to be getting wise.  And they’re improving their come-ons. Increasingly, the spam Akismet captures for me includes a new generation that’s decidedly more subtle.

There’s now the “Blatant Appeal to the Blogger’s Ego” spam:

Dennis Ryan Element 79 Chicago Advertising

And it’s sibling, the “Blatant Appeal to the Blogger’s Ego with Uncalled for Enthusiasm” spam:

Dennis Ryan Element 79 Chicago Advertising

There’s the diligent variation, the “Blatant Appeal to the Blogger’s Ego with A Dutiful Promise of Follow Up Action, Despite the Odd Initial Automation Code Artifact” spam:

Dennis Ryan Element 79 Chicago Advertising

And there’s the exuberant variation, the “Blatant Appeal to the Blogger’s Ego that Starts With a Well-Recognized Web Brand” spam:

There’s the foot-in-the-door variant, the “Blatant Appeal to the Blogger’s Ego While Phishing for an E-Mail” spam:

Dennis Ryan Element 79 Chicago Advertising

Finally, there’s the type like this, which I’m sure is even cagier still, but the cyrillic type keeps me from ever really knowing:

Dennis Ryan Element 79 Chicago Advertising

If that last one offends anyone, I apologize.  Seriously, it could pretty much say anything.

By Dennis Ryan, CCO, Element 79


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Online Privacy and the New Symbol That Says You Have None

February 1, 2010 in Advertising | No comments

Have you seen this symbol?  You will by mid-Summer.  It’s the Power-I icon, and yes, that name is ridiculous.  It leverages the same deceitful euphemism of say ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ to create an impression far different from reality.  Say it aloud (“Power-I!”) and you may even feel subtly empowered too, right?

Just look at that little thing.  It’s almost cute, isn’t it?  Cute and blue and entirely innocuous…  So innocuous that you would never imagine its purpose is to alert you when an online advertising message reaches you through the power of behavioral targeting.  This Power-I is the way the advertising industry hopes to stave off further online regulation around this often creepy new technology.

Proponents of behavioral targeting argue that using metadata like your web surfing history and demographic profile helps them bring more relevant ads and that enhances your online experience.  That almost sounds reasonable, until you consider that a full 72% of internet users polled by Vizu in late 2008 rated online advertising as either “Annoying” or “Extremely Annoying.”  And filtering technology allows you to actively avoid them (have you installed Arc90′s Readability yet?).

Proponents of this new icon argue that the Power-I, along with the simple phrase “Why Did I Get This Ad?” that opens a simple explanatory window when clicked, provides an appropriate level of transparency free of obfuscatory legalese.

But the rest of us simply deal with an ever-narrowing popular definition of privacy.  The web’s extraordinary trackability renders anonymity a thing of the past.  Last year, Jeff Zuckerberg made this high-profile pronouncement: “People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.”  He doesn’t speak for me (great commentary on that here), but he wields serious power of the 350 million registered Facebook users, so unless I can find a groundswell of rebellion to join, he probably will speak for me.

Ick.

In the meantime, if I have something private to share with you, look for a letter in your mailbox.  Some private matters merit the delay.

By Dennis Ryan, CCO, Element 79



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