BAIAblog

Event Recap: A Talk on Digital Privacy

Last Thursday, BAIA held one of its most engaging panel discussions with guest speakers Alessandro Acquisti, Andrea Vaccari, and David Cooke. At the Palo Alto office of Squire Sanders law firm, the evening’s topic on digital privacy was elegantly presented and moderated by Mary Trigiani, a corporate marketing consultant and a close friend of BAIA.

Thanks to the vast expertise and unique perspectives from the speakers, the audience was able to leave with an enhanced view of the online privacy debate and how online privacy is interconnected with technology, economics, and to our own perception.

(Left to Right: Mary Trigiani, Alessandro Acquisti, Andrea Vaccari, David Cooke. Photo courtesy of Aurora Meneghello Productions.)

The Greater Good in Data Collection

As Prof. Acquisti pointed out, “data accrues over time in a database just as capital accrues over time.” As we collect more data, the quality of the data also improves. On the surface of the issue, data collection has always been seen as negative, limiting, and intrusive to our daily lives. In reality, as Mr. Cooke told us, both marketers and consumers can benefit from data collection. The more marketers know about the consumer, the greater the consumer experience, the greater the service, value, and interaction. We have all experienced this and there are spectacular examples on how effective this approach can be. One incredible story is how Target, through customer analytics technology, was able to figure out that a young teenager was pregnant before her father knew.

In addition, as Mr. Vaccari explained, people leave “digital footprints,” data that is collected and left behind. This data can be very useful for developing smarter cities, roads, and can be used to evaluate the mobility of individuals. For example, Mr. Vaccari at MIT took part in The Obama – One People project which mapped out the movements of people during the 2009 Presidential Inauguration in Washington, D.C.

The underlying issue of data collection and privacy is that most of what is technically feasible has not been legislated or regulated. It is therefore left at the discretion of companies to self-regulate and, as Mr. Cooke believes, “companies have an ethical responsibility” to decide how to best manage and protect the data of consumers, businesses, and individuals.

The Brave New World is Profitable. Big Brother is Not!

In economic terms, a delicate balance exists between privacy protection and profit. The reason marketers self-regulate and set privacy boundaries is because they fear of the negative effects of consumer backlash. As the speakers suggested, these privacy boundaries are in part due to our society’s norms and, as a society further develops, certain privacy boundaries of now may become mainstream in the future. In analogy, a conformist, homogeneous society depicted in the Brave New World is a perfect example of how profit would rule over privacy. In contrast, today’s society strives for privacy over profit and Big Brother is a current example of the need for privacy boundaries. As Ms. Trigiani points out, “it is an accomplishment in itself that we are having this conversation on digital privacy.”

Perceptions of Privacy

The way in which we perceive privacy is also very important. Is privacy a commodity or a right? The answer may be both, that is why privacy protection triggers just as much heated debate as the health care debate. Moreover, how privacy is perceived depends largely on our subjective preferences, on our societal constructs, and on our generational values. In sum, the universal truth lies in the fact that we must individually and collectively decide how to balance our online presence and digital presence with our real life.

 

A special thanks to Mary Trigiani, to our guest speakers Alessandro Acquisti, Andrea Vaccari, David Cooke, and to Squire Sanders for a truly great event location in Palo Alto, CA.

Sergio Mandrone

Additional References:

• Event video
• Event photos
• Mary Trigiani, Corporate Marketing Consultant at Spada, Inc
• Alessandro Acquisti, Associate Professor of Information Systems and Public Policy at the Heinz College, Carnegie Mellon University, and Member of Carnegie Mellon CyLab
• Andrea Vaccari, CEO of Glancee (News: Glancee was recently acquired by Facebook)
• David Cooke, Vice President, Analytics at First Rain
• BAIA Upcoming Events

BAIA Link: Tips on Searching for Members, Events, and Resources

San Francisco. Milan. Rome. Until the introduction of social websites, people had confined means to develop business networks and establish connections, especially if it was across borders. Through BAIA Link, the online business community of Italian and American professionals, the opportunites to connect with business professionals, discuss business deals and exchange information is no longer limited by physical proximity.

Here below is a guide on how to search and connect with BAIA Link members and how to tap into the resources, forum discussions, and events of the BAIA Link community.

BAIA Link Member Search

Under the Members tab, click on Search Members: this advanced search form allows you to search for members based on specific criteria (shown below). Your search query may be as broad as possible, for example you may want to look for all members who are interested in Advertising and Marketing, or narrow and specific, for example you can search for only those members who are marketing managers in Italy.

BAIA Link Events Search: Conferences, Panel Discussions, Networking, and More

As an open social network, BAIA Link enables its members to post any relevant event pertaining to Italy-US. These events range from art exhibitions and food festivals to technology conferences and events organized by BAIA.

Besides using keywords to find events of interest, you can easily start by having a look at the most popular events, by clicking on the Popular Event Types featured on the events page.

It is also very useful to use the tagging function on the events page. Since all baia events have specific tags, to view the list of events organized by BAIA in 2011 search for BAIA 2011. If for example you are looking for conferences, a good way to do that is using the tag conference.

BAIA Link Forum: How to Search for Resources

On BAIA Link, the discussion forum is designed to facilitate knowledge sharing and discussions. The BAIA Link Forum is organized around a few key areas:

• Event discussions: Discuss past and upcoming events in the US and Italy.
• Business opportunities: Find and share ideas and opportunities for business in the US and Italy.
• Careers: Job opportunities and career resources for and from the BAIA community. Need to hire? Looking for a job?
• Ask the Consulate: Questions, opinions, discussions about visas, passports, bureaucratic procedures, and everything related to the Italian Consulate. The BAIA Link community or maybe someone from the Consulate will answer.
• and More! View the complete forum categories here.

If you are a relatively new BAIA Link member, chances are that the forum search function may prove to be effective in finding useful resources posted by the BAIA Link Community in the past.

BAIA Link Careers Section: Destination for Job Seekers

Recently, the careers section has become one of the favorite destinations for job seekers. Here are a few discussions shared by the BAIA Link Community:

• Tips for Internship and Job Seekers in Silicon Valley
• Useful Links for Job and Internship Seekers
• The Best Resources on Silicon Valley

Become a BAIA Link Member

Now that you know how to search for members, events, and resources, sign up and become a BAIA Link Member. It’s easy and free. Post your own discussions on our forum and connect with the 1,400+ members of BAIA Link.

Sergio Mandrone

Will Web2.0 online communities survive spam?

Every time a new tool appears on the Internet a group of early adopters jump into it and, with great enthusiasm explore all the possible uses. If the experiment succeeds, a new wave of spammers arrives and starts to exploit the new tool destroying most of its original value.

We have seen it happening countless times. First time I noticed it happening in the early 90’ with the diffusion of the web. In the beginning, all web sites where offering some sort of content. The approach was a little bit naive, resulting mostly in long lists of links and boring personal home pages. At that time, very few people where trying to make money out of the web. Despite all the limitations, browsing Internet, even with a slow dial-up connection, was a thrilling experience: it was something new, and we were able to find some useful content almost everywhere we looked. It didn’t last very long. As the big money and the spammers come to the web, everything changed forever. Since then, the web includes all sorts of websites and there is little space left for naivety and truly free content. Finding interesting content and avoiding the garbage now requires some non trivial skills. Despite the help of search engines, searching the web is almost an art and, according to Mauro Lupi, it will soon become a new profession, presumably a well paid one. This is what Jakob Nielsen calls information pollution, or in case of spam attention theft.
Older than the web, the e-mail survived a bit longer as an effective and reliable way to exchange information. Over the years we learn to accept spam and viruses as integral part of this tool. Now we know that, in order to take advantage of the e-mail power, we have to invest time and resources in separating the spam from legitimate e-mail.

The Web2.0 online communities are now becoming the new spam frontier. In the hands of early adopters those social media tools grew as an extremely powerful way to share information and to have valuable resources emerging from the clutter of the web. Recently we learned that the clutter is here to stay; it's now called the long tail. See Chris Anderson's post "Is the long tail full of crap?". Web communities are integral part of the long tail model, as described by Chris Anderson. But there is a problem with this: as the number of users joining those communities and leaning on their recommendations reaches a critical threshold, spammers see new opportunities for easy money. They begin looking for every possible weak point to enter the communities in order to promote their business. The web systems around which the web communities prosper are designed to facilitate the exchange of opinions and the communication among members; they are not designed to block sneaky tentative to exploit the community for spam purposes. Making the rules stricter is an easy solution that however doesn't guarantee the success against the spammers while can alienate the most valuable members, ready to jump on the next Internet wave.

One additional problem affecting Web2.0 communities is their popularity. I don’t want to sound snobbish, but it’s a real problem. Take for example del.icio.us, the powerful bookmarking system that was acquired about one year ago by Yahoo! If you visit the most popular bookmarks' page, or you search the bookmarks database by tags, you can still be able to find links to some very interesting and otherwise invisible content. I bet that, as del.icio.us will become more popular, the top 20 list will look more and more similar to the top 10 list on YouTube: "full of crap".

This is what is happening now to digg, a powerful system to discover valuable content on the web based on the recommendation of a very active community. I started to hear some of the most valuable contributors and users of digg, such as Rob Hof, Jeff Nolan, and Niall Kennedy, complaining about the popular-ization and spam-ization of digg. According to them, it's a matter of time: the front page of digg will look just like any other collection of questionable jokes, funny videos, and sly spam.

Looking back, we can see how web and e-mail survived the spamming and popularization phases. Their evolution didn't come for free for users like you and me. In the last few years, in order to keep my PC up and running, I paid more to Symantec for anti-spam and anti-virus than to Microsoft for the OS. Will the new Web2.0 communities be able to survive the attack of the spammers? In order to keep enjoying being a member of a web community, are we going to be forced to add another layer of anti-something to our PCs, RSS readers and web aggregators? What do you think?

Franco Folini