Privacy: Is it overrated?

I just read Chris Marriott's latest piece at iMedia Connection.  Come on Chris, you grabbed a headline, and then you went on to argue for privacy like never before.  You gave a great example of someone wishing to be recognised wherever he goes.

And you used that to pretend to argue against privacy.  

That's like arguing that you should never wash your hands because they'll only get dirty again soon.

You gave a great case for targetted and high precision marketing based on what you know about the potential customer, but you failed on one big area.  You failed on the permission front.  If I give you permission to know about me, and if I give you permission to market to me, then and only then can you use what you know about me to market to me.

Oh I know that, deep inside the article, you sort of said so, but your entire business at Acxiom Digital says "Make Every Communication Count."  I got the straight from your website.  And the article looks much more like a gung ho "Pokemon 'Gotta catch 'em, all' piece than a controlled and rifle targetted marketing piece.

What I'd expect to see is a decent set of Fair processing Notices along chatty and friendly lines.

"We want to make sure we tell you about relevant stuff, and only relevant stuff.  Is that Ok with you?"

The thing is, in the European Community, you have to do this stuff.  If you don't then EC Directive 2002/58/EC comes and bites you in the butt.  In the UK that's the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003.  In Spain that's a regulator who is funded by fines coming to get your clients.  In the UK the Information Commissioner is getting stronger powers.

But most of all, we, Joe Consumer, we hate intrusion.  We hate it, resent it, and bite back. Captain Cruiseline calls me from Florida because he validated my number.  Indians called Global Market Research keep calling me to try to sell me some sort of finance report, and, trust me, i am going to work out how to zap them.

And, if your clients start to rifle target their marketing to me without my permission because I've behaved in a particular way on a website that analyses that behaviour you can bet your life that privacy matters, and it matters all the way to a formal complaint to the regulator about their behaviour.

I'm sure you are advising permissions, Chris.  After all you have a UK part to Acxiom and understand this stuff, but I'd sure like to see you advocate them far more strongly.  I think you hid it pretty well, though.

The marketer who understands how to market and grant me my privacy, that is the marketer that stands a chance of getting my business.