March madness continued for all of March with so many upsets in NCAA "March Madness" in which 100% of brackets got busted by end of 2nd round. Loyola Chicago's dream run (with inspiration from 98 year old nun) ended just before Easter Sunday. It came down to Villanova vs Michigan. If I have to bet, Villanova would win NCAA Men's Basketball championship tomorrow. White House Madness continued with few more resignations. People are getting used to White House version of Apprentice!
However most surprising and dis-appointing news came out of Silicon Valley. The companies we got used to trusting with our photos, likes and shares had been taking our privacy too lightly and had major leaks across the board. Most significant revelation came from a whistle blower that Cambridge Analytica had account details of 50 million Facebook accounts and they used these details to influence outcomes of Brexit as well US presidential elections. Basically they stole privacy of 50 million account holders and Facebook let them! Twitter actively sells data and so does Facebook to make millions (and maybe billions). While their business model is based on collecting data and using it to insert relevant information and ads into our feeds, no one expected that they would be so lax in protecting our data. If Data = Oil of 21st century, shouldn't data leakage be treated same way as oil leakage? Exxon three decades back and BP few years back had to pay significant penalties and clean up the mess when they had oil leakage? One could argue that when people are willing to share, they have no privacy. All of us have signed privacy disclosures which these companies asked us to sign (which I am sure no one read) when we opened accounts. These companies started with novel and audacious goals like "Connecting People on Planet" or "Democratizing news"and had done wonderful job in achieving these visions. They really changed the way people are connecting, sharing, consuming news and many aspects of our lives. Along the way they earned trust of billions of people who used these platforms on daily basis. However due to their lax policies in protecting the data, trust in these companies is eroding. It takes a decade to build trust but takes a moment to lose it!
So how should these companies change? Leaders of these companies have accepted the responsibility at morale level but they need to do lot more with specific actions (before Governments tell them). Here are some ideas:
Ten years back in middle of March, Wall Street lost the trust with bailout of Bear Sterns which led to implosion of Lehman Brothers 6 months later and start of financial crisis. Silicon Valley should learn from those events.
However most surprising and dis-appointing news came out of Silicon Valley. The companies we got used to trusting with our photos, likes and shares had been taking our privacy too lightly and had major leaks across the board. Most significant revelation came from a whistle blower that Cambridge Analytica had account details of 50 million Facebook accounts and they used these details to influence outcomes of Brexit as well US presidential elections. Basically they stole privacy of 50 million account holders and Facebook let them! Twitter actively sells data and so does Facebook to make millions (and maybe billions). While their business model is based on collecting data and using it to insert relevant information and ads into our feeds, no one expected that they would be so lax in protecting our data. If Data = Oil of 21st century, shouldn't data leakage be treated same way as oil leakage? Exxon three decades back and BP few years back had to pay significant penalties and clean up the mess when they had oil leakage? One could argue that when people are willing to share, they have no privacy. All of us have signed privacy disclosures which these companies asked us to sign (which I am sure no one read) when we opened accounts. These companies started with novel and audacious goals like "Connecting People on Planet" or "Democratizing news"and had done wonderful job in achieving these visions. They really changed the way people are connecting, sharing, consuming news and many aspects of our lives. Along the way they earned trust of billions of people who used these platforms on daily basis. However due to their lax policies in protecting the data, trust in these companies is eroding. It takes a decade to build trust but takes a moment to lose it!
So how should these companies change? Leaders of these companies have accepted the responsibility at morale level but they need to do lot more with specific actions (before Governments tell them). Here are some ideas:
- Likes and shares are like nano-products created by people. People own their likes and shares and should not sold by Facebook/Twitter by default
- Companies must ask users if they would like to "share" or "sell" their likes for purposes like advertisements, campaigns, curated materials or polls. Depending on the value created by these "products", companies should share monetary benefits with creators (similar to what Youtube does with user generated videos).
- Strict protections should be built to avoid data leakage
- If partners who bought data are misusing it, strict penalties should be enforced including cutting off access to data.
- Technology should be evolved where each data has expiry timer
- Netflix has done admirable job in protecting what we watch
Ten years back in middle of March, Wall Street lost the trust with bailout of Bear Sterns which led to implosion of Lehman Brothers 6 months later and start of financial crisis. Silicon Valley should learn from those events.
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