Commercial vs. Social Targeting
The privacy battles continue to rage, driven primarily by changing policies at some of the bigger social networking sites. It makes sense to start defining this market more precisely, since privacy is the flip side to targeting-the less privacy you have in your on-line existence, presumably the more easily you’ll be targeted. This begs several questions, the most obvious of which is, what sort of targeting are we talking about? Being targeted by a vendor who is trying to sell me something is very different from being targeted socially by someone with whom I don’t have a commercial relationship.
The vendor has a specific, encapsulated objective in targeting me; get me to buy their product or service. This is not normally much of an issue; the more accurate the targeting mechanism is, the more likely I am to be interested, the less accurate is it, the more likely I am to delete the vendor with a fast click. Presumably a good targeting algorithm will note that I delete the vendors efforts (or don’t respond), and pretty soon they stop pestering me, because why bother with the expense and effort of pursuing someone who isn’t interested? Keep in mind that any vendor who uses a sophisticated behavioral targeting application is probably trying to develop a sustained relationship, not a one night stand, and it’s in their interest to have a happy and responsive customer. The more accurately I’m targeted, the more I am likely to be interested in a continuing relationship.
Social targeting has a completely different dynamic and is driven and defined by context. The whole notion of privacy in a social network is defined by a group dynamic; nearly everyone on Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, etc. is part of a group, but even here there are levels of segmentation. Family and friends are one thing, but what happens when you start to move into a setting with commercial aspects to it? If I am part of my alumni network on Facebook, does that give my alma mater the right to contact me through the FB site for donations? I would say yes, because the line of commercial validation has been crossed in that context, either now, or in the past. If I join an interest group focused on, for example, analytics (which is a business, not social context), I would expect (and frankly would want) to be contacted by peer group members, many of who are consultants.
The sticking point seems to be breaching the privacy firewall in a strictly social (not commercial) setting. I would not want my friends marketed to in my name unless I have specifically authorized it. Since this is not likely to happen (I don’t have a commercial relationship with my friends, that’s what makes them my friends and not my clients), no one else should on my behalf either. Integrity of context does in fact make a significant difference, and hopefully most vendors will continue to respect that distinction. The problem is that the non-commercial and commercial sectors are starting to overrun each other, and you can’t assume people will behave professionally when it’s not business-centric. The bottom line should be if money has changed hands, the context and therefore the rules of engagement have been defined. If it has not, the same rule applies in reverse, context is defined, and a distinct and tighter set of privacy rules should be in place, something the social networking sites are still struggling to understand.