It is a new frontier, but while the United States launches with the impetus of the pioneers to explore new territories regarding privacy and personal data, Europe seems entrenched in the protection at all costs of privacy, even if its citizens do not want it. Google, for example, faces several lawsuits in Spain and other countries for the use of personal data, first for the capture of data when making Street View images, which allow you to see the streets of any city; but also because of the persistence in the results of searches for data or information uncomfortable for certain people.
By contrast, in the United States, several companies are beginning to turn privacy and data into a new currency that allows companies and users to benefit each other. During 2010, there are several companies that have begun to act as intermediaries between those who have no problem when it comes to revealing their tastes or their buying habits, and advertisers, who can do more accurate market research or show their products to those truly interested.
Internet advertising grows
Advertising is the key at a time when all mainstream media is more or less stuck in advertising growth. With two extremes: the press, which suffers an unstoppable fall in advertising turnover and television, which continues to grow slowly. But only on the Internet are there double-digit growth. The 2010 data handled by the consulting firm Pricewaterhouse indicate that the growth of advertising in general was 6 percent, while that destined for the Network reached 14 percent, in the first 9 months.
That's where new companies – and also the big companies in the sector, such as Microsoft – come in by turning personal data into a bargaining chip. It is a new business that can also alleviate the concern of advertisers regarding the measures proposed by some European governments to prevent the famous cookies, the small programs that save the history and footprint of everything that users do on the Internet, from being stored on the computer.
That together with the fact that all browsers already include tools to block advertising -desired or not-, allows the proliferation of a business of buying and selling data far removed from the already obsolete method of creating gigantic databases with valid email addresses, the main asset of spamers or disseminators of spam.
The value of private data
Some companies in the United States began paying users a commission every time their personal data is used by third parties. It is true that sometimes this is data that supposes – at least from the European perspective – an invasion of user privacy, because they refer to shopping habits, browsing, health and even political options. But it is data that is given voluntarily. Personal Inc., for example, helps people reap the benefits of providing their personal information to advertisers.
And more and more people who, far from being paranoid with their data, have no problem marketing it. Another of these companies is Allow Ltd., which acts as an intermediary between those who wish to sell their data and buyers. The company gives users up to 70 percent of what it gets for their data by marketing it. The future possibilities of this kind of business shows, for example, that the Davos Forum, held in Switzerland at the beginning of 2011, studied how to turn personal data into an asset class and give people the right to manage and sell it on their own.
Source: Today's Events
