Do technical solutions really help to address the ethical and privacy concerns some claim?

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Ethical practice and privacy concerns dominate conversations in the marketing industry, with 71% of UK consumers more alarmed than ever about their online privacy (Statista, 2021).

There are many frameworks that are positioned to help marketers follow ethical practices. Most notably, and building upon Mason’s PAPA framework (Mason, 1986) to provide an approach that is applicable in the digital age, McBride (2014) created the ACTIVE framework: Autonomy, Community,Transparency, Identity, Value and Empathy

Each element of McBride’s ACTIVE framework can be seen in current consumer concerns (Statista, 2021) including:

• Data being passed or sold to third parties

• Identity theft and fraud

• Misuse of data

One of the most common online privacy measures taken by consumers is the clearing, or disabling, of cookies (Statista, 2021). This illustrates a wider “erosion of trust” between brands and consumers (Temkin, 2021) which has led to the phasing out of cookies.

Without cookies, how will marketers access the data they need whilst respecting the privacy and ethical concerns of consumers?

Some technical innovation is beginning to be introduced, such as New Pass ID, Unified ID 2.0 and Google Privacy Sandbox. Each one claiming to solve the concerns outlined in ACTIVE, whilst providing enough data to keep the industry alive.

Unified ID 2.0 (UID2) uses personally identifying information (PII) like an email address to create an encrypted token. The token is shared with publishers and advertisers, and can be tracked, linking together consumer data.

Google’s Sandbox works by providing browser level anonymised information to the advertiser without relying on a personal identifier to ‘protect anonymity while still delivering results for advertisers and publishers.’ Using Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) that work by ‘clustering large groups of people with similar interests’ and delivering content relevant to those interests. Google claim that this approach will effectively hide individuals “in the crowd” and uses on-device processing to keep a person’s web history private on the browser.” (Temkin, 2021)

Both innovations work to address some of the elements of the ACTIVE framework, namely identity and transparency.

However, UID2 requires explicit input - if you don’t share your personal information, you cannot be profiled, and publishers can only demand PII in exchange for content. So, a UID2 system also tackles the issue of autonomy.

Whilst on the surface, these innovations are taking steps to address some of the concerns laid out by the ACTIVE framework, when you look in more detail, they raise more questions than they answer.

Firstly, Google is promising anonymity to users, but can we be truly anonymous online? In 2006, AOL released ‘anonymous’ data to be searched, but user no.4417749 was able to be identified following the searches they made, their location and their interests (Barbaro, M and Zeller T, 2006). This is something that FLoC currently doesn’t have a plan to combat. If users are sub-grouped by their interests, how easy will it be to identify individuals, especially if they belong to more than one?

Similarly, UID2 states that any firm "that is a 'compliant member of the ecosystem' can receive decryption keys…to access non-encrypted data” (Cyphers, 2021) which begs the question, how does this solve any privacy issues raised in the ACTIVE framework, if publishers are able to buy their way around it?

Finally, we must consider whether consumers really care? 92% of consumers have no better understanding of how companies use their data since GDPR came into law or even know what the GDPR is (Ogury, 2019). In addition, 65% of consumers said they were happy to accept certain online privacy risks if it made their life more convenient (Statista, 2021). Nill and Aalberts (Nill and Aalberts, 2014) define privacy as the “control of the dissemination and use of consumer information” but with so many consumers not understanding, or caring, about how these technologies will help to achieve true privacy and combat ethical concerns, we must ask whether the concerns outlined in ACTIVE are truly the concerns of consumers? Or does it simply represent industry ideals?

If that’s the case, how important are these innovations?

Google Sandbox and UID2 are beginning to address the ethical and privacy concerns of those consumers who are engaged and already acting. However, there is work to be done before they can be seen as credible solutions not only for the industry, by tackling all the elements in McBride’s ACTIVE framework, but also to protect those who aren’t as informed about the issues and risks online.

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References

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