DailyDirt: Data Is Everywhere, Let's Use It

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Thu, Sep 25th 2014 5:00pm — Michael Ho

If you've been reading Techdirt for a while, you probably know that we're not big fans of this myth: "If you're not paying for the product, you are the product." Regardless of whether or not you pay for something, some companies will still treat their customers horribly. Likewise, there are also some corporations that try to treat customers (or users) with respect without expectation of payment for the favor. That said, it's easy to make mistakes that get mis-interpreted when it comes to analyzing consumer behavior. An unintentional email message to a targeted (or even un-targeted) group of customers can enrage a whole community. Consumer data is available to a lot of companies, but it might be wise for these companies to tread lightly with their data scientists. Here are just a few cases that data miners might want to check out.

Facebook participated in some social experiments, but creating an "emotional contagion" resulted in some unwanted public attention. The actual ability for a social network to measure or effect various emotions is far from proven, but the potential to cause widespread distress through a social network is probably something users should be concerned about. [url]
Shutterfly made a seemingly small mistake in mass-emailing a bunch of its customers a congratulatory message about an upcoming newborn. The photo printing service wasn't even using data mining techniques (eg Target) to try to figure out who might be pregnant, but in this data-driven world, folks are trained to expect that companies may be trying to pry into their personal lives. [url]
Social psychology has had some problems with scientific fraud, and thankfully, there are some investigators who are developing methods to find fake or massaged data. It's hard enough to actually design psych experiments that have conclusive results, but sometimes the data can't lie. [url]
OKCupid admits to experimenting on its users, too. The difference with dating sites is that the people using them seem to be tacitly agreeing to be experimented upon. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

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Filed Under: advertising, consumer behavior, data, data mining, emotional contagion, marketing, psychology, reputation, social experiments
Companies: facebook, okcupid, shutterfly, target

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Anonymous Coward, 25 Sep 2014 @ 5:11pm

> "If you're not paying for the product, you are the product."
It's perfectly valid. You'll only get into trouble if you deny the antecedent.
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Barbara Duck, 25 Sep 2014 @ 11:14pm

Data Selling Epidemic
Here's some information on this and my campaign to license data sellers so we know who they are and can on our own dime go fix it. Flawed data is on the rise and we have the "scoring of America" taking place as it's not only your data but they score you and sell that too. Scoring has been going on for a long time but now they sell it for money. Walgreens makes between 1-2 billion a year selling data.

I was happy to hear Tim Cook mention the word "license" as well because we should know who they are. We get repackaged and sold over and over and so go the flaws. People are showing up with diabetes diagnosis who are not and other chronic diseases.

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/09/tim-cook-from-apple-talks-privacy-we.html

FTC found 7 mobile apps selling data.

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/08/senator-schumer-of-new-york-calling-for.html

http://duckn etweb.blogspot.com/2014/08/transparency-and-privacy-campaign-need.html

Hospitals buying your Acxiom and credit card data, they are idiots and I don't think this will fly but they are beginning the process.

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/06/oh-crap-now-hospitals-are-now-buying.html

World privacy report too covers "The Scoring of America"

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/04/world-privacy-forum-report-scoring-of.html

Selling of the "scores" really dangerous as this relates right back to the acceleration of inequality as you get denied something so my campaign is about transparency, not stopping data selling but like you said, become more responsible as flawed data gets same price as good data and they don't care.

Here's a company that packages your credit card data and sells it to insurers, scored and analyzed.

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/08/argus-analytics-produces-share-of.html

We do have concerns with privacy.
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