That article really rubbed me the wrong way. It was a bunch of marketing people basically saying “privacy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be because it doesn’t make poor people rich” and “you’ll ruin the ability of small businesses to thrive if you don’t allow them to base their businesses on intrusive mass surveillance.”
The arrogance is astounding. If you can’t start a business without invading my privacy, you should rethink your business model. Just because surveillance marketing makes finding customers easier, doesn’t make it right. This part in particular is absurd:
Privacy can be, in some sense, a problem of the privileged. We know of no rigorous study showing that toughened digital marketing privacy policies produced tangible economic benefits for anyone, let alone lower-income consumers.
No, privacy is a problem for all of us, not just the privileged. To suggest otherwise is a deflection. It’s not always just about economics, even the working class have other things we value.
“We know of no rigorous study showing that toughened digital marketing privacy policies produced tangible economic benefits for anyone”
What the hell even is that statement? Who has ever argued that we want privacy for economic benefit?? I hope I’m just misunderstanding it due to lack of context or else it’s one of the statements most detached from reality I’ve ever seen in my life.
Nope seems like you understand it perfectly. It’s completely detached from reality. It’s like saying “we know of no rigorous study showing that accurate weather forecasts produced a tangible increase in the number of people who like bagels.” Like, okay, sure, but no one thought there was.
We know of no rigorous study showing that toughened digital marketing privacy policies produced tangible economic benefits for anyone, let alone lower-income consumers.
You do not need a study to see the numerous headlines of companies having their data breached of your personal information they did not even have permission to collect.
I suppose the significant amount of money spent on fines, repairs, lawsuits, ransomware do not count.
This article is disgusting.
Any business that cannot succeed without targeted advertising does not deserve to exist. “These businesses would have failed without massively invading people’s privacy” isn’t a flaw.
The APRA is dog shit because it preempts states and would relegate any future privacy legislation to an impossible slog through congress. It’s also a bill that’s already all but dead so this hilariously tone deaf hit piece from marketing professors about how the APRA is bad because it hurts targeting advertisers is dumb both for its underlying suppositions but also because ironically, these brilliant bastions of marketing knowledge don’t seem to realize the appropriate time for this piece was two months ago.
