In Part 1 of this article, I commented upon the likely impact to the advertising sector, of Google removing all third-party cookies from its Chrome browser.
The fundamental driver in that scenario however, is our tacit agreement to use these services, and thereby give the tech companies enormous power over “their” unique user base or franchise (i.e. us!)
In an interview recently given to the BBC, Edward Armstrong, a freelance copywriter and consultant based in London said: “We agree to give these companies ownership of our lives and they are cashing in,” he stated; “I’m uncomfortable with the power of the major service providers such as Google and Facebook. We think everything is free, but the cost is our data and privacy”.
If Google knows everything you have ever searched for, it has a detailed catalogue of your interests, hopes and fears. Facebook knows who your friends are, what you like and what you talk about online…and thus their power to “profile” and “target” consumers for advertising is unmatched, not to mention the revenue streams that they generate from selling this information!
BUT…power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Online data scandals have raised concerns about the power that such information brings. In July of last year, Facebook received the unprecedented fine of USD$5Bn for the part it played in facilitating the (now infamous) misuse of data by political consultancy Cambridge Analytica; and concern is growing. Only last week Facebook was again censured by the German courts, and Italy is considering a second €5M fine for failing to comply with a transparency order.
A recent survey conducted by ESOMAR in partnership with HERE Technologies, supported by Buzzback and CINT, clearly showed increasing consumer distrust for social media when it comes to protecting their privacy. Conversely, the study also showed an increasing disposition amongst citizens to share MORE data, if the data collector is open, transparent and honest about their purpose, and this is the unique opportunity that subscription to a Code of conduct like ESOMAR’s, offers this sector. Adherence to a principle of transparency not only reassures consumers, it increases their pre-disposition to share information.
In this era of distrust therefore, “data dignity” is of rapidly increasing importance; multi-national codes of conduct have an exponentially growing role to play in CSR and in building consumer confidence. In parallel, some see real opportunity in including privacy by design in the establishment of new services; here are three that have been around a while, but which were recently reviewed by the BBC…
DuckDuckGo – founded in 2008 by Gabriel Weinberg – registers around 50 million searches per day. It works similarly to Google but maintains a simple privacy policy of not storing or sharing personal information. DuckDuckGo is free, and makes its money through advertising, but the adverts it displays are not based on the user’s history or behaviour.
ProtonMail is an end-to-end encrypted mail service founded in 2014 at the CERN research facility (European Nuclear Research Organisation based in Geneva), by Andy Yen, Jason Stockman, and Wei Sun. Emails between ProtonMail accounts are automatically protected with end-to-end encryption, meaning the messages are only viewable by the sender and the recipient. It has become the world’s largest provider of encrypted email, with 20+ million users. ProtonMail is also free to use, and makes its money by charging for upgrades and additional storage. The service has proven popular enough that it has spun out another service, ProtonVPN, which allows users to browse the internet securely and privately.
A similar free, secure browsing service, Brave (developed by Brave Software, which was founded on 28 May 2015 by CEO Brendan Eich and CTO Brian Bondy), blocks the tracking and profiling of users, protecting privacy and making browsing faster. Brave says it currently has 8.7 million monthly active users and 3 million active daily users.
The challenge, however, is breaking habits. Google has become almost the default search engine worldwide and has even become a synonym for the verb “search”. Equally, the scale of adoption and thus its potential “reach” is very difficult to ignore or leave behind…
But if we really are concerned about tacitly offering market dominance to a Tech player, or if we do care about the amount of personal information that is being profitably traded unbeknownst to us, then the most efficient way to combat those companies is to take away their “power” – i.e. their users.
The less we use Google, the less dominant and effective they will be in the post-third party cookie advertising world…the less we use Facebook, the less they will represent a huge sample or segmentation source, or be able to manipulate voters, political tendencies and urban myths. It is also interesting to note that the domination of these tech platforms is not based on a lack of education; rather it is facilitated by a certain degree of laziness (or comfort) amongst us as users, and by a lack of awareness of the extent to which they can (and do) manipulate and trade in, our data. The challenge is one of raising public awareness!
So, can there be life after Google? Yes, if we care enough about it…but more realistically, there can also be life with Google, if ethical data practices and codes of conduct are accepted as a USP, rather than as an annoyance or a hindrance!!
Cover photo by Pathum Danthanarayana on Unsplash
