January 28 has been designated Data Privacy Day and it couldn’t have come soon enough. A little bit of digging shows that the idea started more than 10 years ago but has now gained international recognition and traction. That’s a good thing and it has happened just in the nick of time.
But at this point, limiting the awareness effort to one day seems a little anemic.
Yesterday we published a piece on the PCMag / Motherboard investigation that turned up evidence that Avast – the PC anti-virus provider (the people who are supposed to be protecting you from internet incursions) have been collecting all manner of user data from their apps and selling it on the open market. That was yesterday – who knows what will turn up tomorrow.
The point is, and if you dig through our archives you’ll see, that data privacy is central and core to every aspect of customer engagement. No, it wasn’t really so a few short years ago but it certainly is now. Consumers have gained a lot more control in the marketing conversation and are looking for brands that understand the new dynamic and can operate within it. To miss this critical point is to put your organization behind a very large (and growing) eight ball.
On the other hand, there are some great examples of brands that have chosen transparency and, let’s call it, an “ethical” approach to customer data and their customers are responding in kind. Look for some examples in upcoming articles.
Data Privacy Day appears to have more a consumer (B2C) orientation than a business (B2B) one but that doesn’t mean organizations should take a pass. Today is an opportunity to re-examine your organization’s customer data practices in light of this new dynamic and adjust course as necessary.
Side note:
This looks like its more about the optics than the substance but maybe I’m a bit jaded.
Photo by James Sutton on Unsplash.
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