I love keeping my eyes open for changing trends in behavior, especially online behavior.
The battle to maintain one’s privacy in a world of socially mediated publicness is a topic well picked over. Both celebrities and folks of less renown have all had a digital mishap, whether it’s the mistaken click on “Reply all” or the R-rated photo that ends up in the wrong hands.
The message of “the internet is forever” is probably as firmly embedded in the consciousness of folks young and old, just like “look both ways before you cross the street.” Not that people always heed the good advice they hear.
Into the breach have stepped several apps and services designed to anonymize your activity online. Wickr, Snapchat and the Silent Circle products are just a few examples of companies trying to help you keep your private life private.
Wickr offers “military-grade encryption of text, picture, audio and video messages.” Yikes!
Snapchat is a photo-only service (for now) that allows you to put a time limit on how long the picture will display on the recipient’s device, up to 10 seconds. I gather this one is popular with the younger crowd.
The Silent Circle family of products were created by a “mix of world-renowned cryptographers, Silicon Valley software engineers…and former US Navy SEALs and British Special Air Service security experts.” They even offer a feature called “Burn Notice.” Too much time watching USA Network?
All kidding aside, it appears that the time is right for options like these, for various reasons. While no one is FORCING you to post a status update on Facebook or check in on Foursquare, none of us ever feel totally confident that what we try to keep private actually remains that way. Our website visits are tracked by advertisers or your ISP, our emails and texts logged, phone conversations recorded. There is no digital equivalent to the Mafia movie scenes where the two guys walk outside amid traffic noise, and far from wiretaps, to have a private conversation.
Nowadays, closing the door to your office has no digital equivalent.
All of us have had that slightly queasy feeling that everything we do might someday be a part of the public record. I’m not positive that even these three services can successfully wipe the digital slate clean. It seems to me that communications sent from your phone, across a network to someone else’s device must be stored SOMEWHERE. Do your research.
Too often the argument for more privacy online (or off) is attacked with the tired argument of “well, if you’re not doing anything wrong, you shouldn’t be worried.” That is so stupid on its face I won’t comment further. Smart people do dumb things, to be sure, but there are few justifications for the level of invasiveness granted to corporations, public utilities, your employer, etc. And there are times when you might like to talk to someone about something, and not have the whole world potentially know about it.
This is not some unhinged Libertarian rant against Big Brother, but I wonder if we are not seeing some push back in an area that all of us have probably felt some prior discomfort.
Plus, getting to play “Mission: Impossible” with your phone could be kind of fun. “This text will self-destruct in five seconds…”
What do you think? Do you think these kind of apps are responding to a real need? Would you sign up for one of them? Post a comment.
I think there’s a “real need” but I don’t believe in that need. Like so many things – Y2K, 12/21/12 et al – I think many of the fears that people have are generated strategically to be monetized by services like the ones you mention.
To be clear, when there are illegal breaches of security – whether online or off – that’s a problem and should be dealt with accordingly. When the evil genius in Ukraine spreads malware designed to harm, then that’s a serious issue. Companies tracking our online behavior, etc. are doing something completely different. The conflation of all of these – plus adding a little fear of Big Brother to boot – IMO is just factually incorrect and alarmist.
During Vietnam, if we wanted to bomb a building we had to drop hundreds of them, carpet bomb the area, to make sure we hit the target. Now we have the technology to put a specific bomb in a specific window in a specific building. That’s where advertising is going and consumer data is what drives that. Frankly, I like being served ads that are more relevant and interesting to me. On Facebook, for example, I’ve actually derived significant value from clicking their ads. I’ve gone to events, gotten logos and other creative work designed, and learned about a variety of products etc. that were squarely in the bulls eye of my interests. For me, the cost of knowing that they track my online behavior has been acceptable when compared to the value I have derived from seeing targeted advertising.
And btw, isn’t that what we want? We hate ads that are meaningless and irrelevant. If someone could unobtrusively read our minds and suggest things/products/entertainment etc. that actually mean something to us – then isn’t that an actual value? An ad for, say, the New York Giants offends my sensibilities, but one for the Patriots? Ah, now we’re talking. It’s that simple. 🙂
I think we are in a unique time when advertisers are beginning to get much smarter about using data and when consumers are still relativity new in having to think about the issue of online privacy. I can’t imagine that our kids will think about this issue the way we do. Again, if someone breaches our sense of privacy in ways that actually do harm, then that’s an entirely different thing. I can guarantee you that advertisers have absolutely no interest in pissing off consumers. Quite the opposite.
You’ve focused on advertising which, ironically, I think is the one area that gives a lot of people the creepiest feeling. Behavioral targeting, while a potential boon to advertisers, could also be seen as invasive, intrusive and maybe even illegal. You are someone who loves advertising and studies these kinds of trends, which probably takes you out of the “most people” category. Am I alone in saying that I have never clicked an internet ad, and barely even notice them?
But consider this example: you check in at a restaurant or, worse yet, a fast food joint. It’s your fourth check in this month. A health insurance company decides that your diet is less than optimal and decides to either not insure you or raise your premium. Or maybe you need to have a quick back and forth email with your wife about a doctor visit. It’s conceivable that you would rather your employer did not know about it. And not necessarily because you’re dying, but because it’s none of their damn business.
That there can be more precision in reaching audiences glides past the methods of how that precision is arrived at. It’s not the illegal breaches that are most troubling. It’s the legal ones. You cannot open the paper (yes, I still open the paper) without seeing a COPPA violation re: minors or a story about a user’s information being collected and used without their knowledge. The system lack transparency, I think, and privacy is dead. Has been since way before the internet. The difference now is maybe folks have a chance to reclaim some privacy. Disconnecting from the internet is not an option, but maybe gaining a bit of control is.