Is Data mining pushing ethical boundaries…A true Marketers’ Dilemma

Ahh…Data Privacy..

 

One of those hot topics that never seems to escape the attention of  tabloids these days. With shocking headlines suggesting you privacy is at stake

 

It seems quite apparent that big conglomerates are failing to protect our privacy.  like the disaster that surrounded Facebook’s Privacy sandal with Cambridge Analytica and the recent data leakages of the  commonwealth bank breach.

Seems like its becoming a daily occurrence…. Kinda scary to think of it.

So Where does our privacy stand?

Under the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsible Act.  Privacy relates to the principles of human dignity, human uniqueness, the importance of solitude, and has historically been described as ‘the right to be left alone’.

 

let me emphasis “The right be to left alone”…. I am not sure how much alone time we will be getting with all the personalisation going on with ads popping up all over the place.

 

Ever wondered  why advertisements are so personal these days  ?

Because Companies are selling our Data thats why!

Data mining  has  made things very personal ….so personal that, companies now know the your daily purchasing habits how you live your lifestyle this information is readily pasted onto third parties.

Those loyalty Cards you have busy tapping away with at the end of  register hoping to receive a coupon to buy that brand new popcorn maker  you been wishing for has been tracking you the moment in swiped

If you have not already noticed  every time you search for google result , go onto social media platforms or   they are retrieving your data.

Lets face it its unavoidable we are progressively heading into the information economy where traces of  our data is unavoidable.

Tapping into data driven optimization can be exceptional lucrative as a marketer to for short term profits but what happens if you negate the responsibilities of privacy ….

 Professor Tiberio Caetano, -founder and chief scientist of Ambiata, at CeBIT provides the  benefits of taking  and ethical approach towards  data mining

Here he gives us his two cents on the topic  :

Caetano started by defining personalisation as treating different people differently in order to maximize profitability. He outlined the steps businesses need to take to achieve profitability and stressed that not only is ethical personalisation possible, its possible without sacrificing short-term profitability, and the ethics act as a cheap, long term insurance policy.

“This moving area is the ethical mining range. Look in this region to obtain a better ethical outcome, as you won’t lose in profitability, but the ethics will protect you as an insurance policy against future loss of profitability,” he argued.

“Businesses need to step back and wake up. Ethics is an insurance policy sold at a bargain and most people don’t recognize that. Ethics insures business against worse-case scenarios that could happen in the future,” he explained.

By doing this, business will elevate into operating in a different world, and have the ability to grow a long-term, sustainable, large scale business

“The market is intelligent, but it’s not as wise as it will be in 20 years’ time. The market does not entirely understand what is likely to go wrong years or even months from now.”

 As a  Marketer what do you think about his statements ? Do you agree or disagree with Caetano words on ethics being a long term insurance policy or would you sacrifice it all for short term profits

Thank you for reading another Digital Marketing Fixations  blog I hope this opens your eyes into the ethical considerations of data mining