In life, as on screen, it is a well-trodden trope that in small towns everyone knows everyone else’s business. Gossip at the hair salon, the post office, the hardware store...
The result of all the colourful local characters knowing your business is another trope: well-meaning meddling in your business. Typically by a generation older than you. Which always backfires in various, supposedly comical ways.
Of course, your consent is not sought or required for any of this, but that’s OK because it’s for your own good. Right? It’s just giving you a necessary push in the right direction – one must assume you’re hopelessly clueless – so in the end your dream of owning a successful B&B and/or smooching your soulmate will come true.
Well, no. Even quirky and well-meaning violations of privacy and consent are still violations. It’s often skirted by making consent… fuzzier. A tactic so common that it has a term in various genres, particularly those dealing with interpersonal relationships: dubcon. Short for “dubious consent.” It’s telling that the term is also used as a content warning.
Right, so this has what to do with technology, exactly? Too much, really. Hell, given how we, as tech users, are usually treated with regards to our privacy and consent, even some dubcon would even be a refreshing improvement from the norm.
Now, sure, we are presented with all kinds of buttons and checkboxes and end user licence agreements (EULAs) to scroll through, so legally we do consent, over and over. But from a user experience perspective? From a “Can you tell me anything about what you just agreed to?” perspective? We don’t consent, not really.
I would love to say that here in the Year of Our Lord 2021, that we’d all become savvy online and in our uses of technology. We would assiduously protect our privacy and security, no matter what.
This is not the case. We give up our privacy and security for convenience, for free stuff, to fix stuff, because we want to be helpful, because we’re told we need to to achieve XYZ. But most commonly, we give it up because we don’t understand.
We don’t understand exactly what we’re giving up. We don’t understand that we’re giving it up. And we don’t understand how the stuff we’ve consented to hand over can or will be used after we’ve agreed.
Sometimes, our data is certainly used for meddling that we’re pretty much told is for our own good. To date, however, having my online activities and personal preferences mined like a coal seam by tech companies has not resulted in me receiving a soulmate or a B&B.
Could it be because, unlike quirky, homespun townsfolk, tech companies don’t have my best interests at heart?
The thing about user data mined online is that, ultimately, the whole process doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Or at least the results don’t make sense based on what I understand it’s being sold or analyzed for.
Yes, there are stories and incidents where patterns of online behaviour can reveal a great deal. Including stuff you want kept secret. And yes, there’ve been instances when I’ve been served up ads for things I actually might want to buy.
More of the time, though? You gotta wonder. Like those platform pastel pink patent leather boots with eight-inch heels that showed up in one of my feeds recently. While I was, in fact, in the market for some boots, I can’t imagine eight-inch heels and platform soles being a great idea on icy sidewalks.
Or have you ever gone and looked at who’s gotten access to your data on Facebook (i.e. paid for it)? There’s a tonne of American car dealerships in there, at least for me and various friends who’ve checked. Pretty sure I am never going to be in the market for a Toyota in Ohio.
Facebook is as big as they come, and that’s the best they can do with All The Data? Am I missing something?
What’s the point? Our data gets hoovered up and they make billions selling it to eager buyers. Do those buyers think they’re getting their money’s worth? Maybe they do. This is not my area of expertise. But what if… What if consent.
What if companies had to get our consent to access our data for wherever we went and whatever we did online? What if we got to choose what they knew, and who could contact us, and what they could try to sell us?
I know, wild stuff. What do I think this is… Europe?
Now, this is partly the case in the EU. Of course the internet doesn’t operate within the same borders as the physical world. But they’re further along in this way of doing things than we are on this side of the pond.
Here’s what I think. By giving the power of consent to people, by accessing and using less data, and providing it to fewer hungry companies, everybody could actually make more money. Oh, and our privacy and security would be better maintained.
If what you can know about me is limited to what I’ve specifically agreed to, then the picture my data paints is going to be far more precise and with much better timing. It will be of no use to Toyota dealerships in Ohio or whomever sells eight-inch platform heels. They can spend their money more intelligently.
But when I get a well-targeted ad, it’s usually really well targeted. (WKRP in Cincinnati 1978 Commemorative Turkey Drop T-shirt? Bravo.) It makes me want to buy the thing. And lucky for them, I am quite comfortable buying things online. Everyone wins!
(I wonder if platforms record the snark from my friends and I mocking the truly terribly targeted ads?)
Fortunately, consent management is a thing, and a growing thing. It protects the average person who, as noted, likely doesn’t really understand EULAs. It protects companies from having, using or losing information they shouldn’t have or should have better protected.
If my data isn’t being hoovered up and stored all over the place, then there are fewer points of invasion for security breaches, fewer “haveibeenpwned?” email notifications, and fewer companies and organizations I want nothing to do with because they can’t or just didn’t protect me as a user or customer.
I do foresee it being challenging to evolve toward a default of consumers’ expectations of consent being sought and respected. Especially in North America where we are so trained not to worry our pretty little heads about our data and who’s getting a hold of it.
But I think that’s changing. I think administration changes south of the border will encourage tech giants to conduct themselves more responsibly as well.
Ultimately, no matter where you are on the planet, good customer service and experience is not just convincing us to buy or sign up for more stuff.
Good customer service and experience is treating every customer’s account like it’s as important as the wallet in your own pocket.
Just don’t meddle in the lives of the other small-town folk if you wouldn’t want them meddling in yours.
M-Theory is an opinion column by Melanie Baker. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Communitech. Melle can be reached on Twitter at @melle or by email at me@melle.ca.
