It seems that exactly WHAT makes up privacy and what data is ok to use, what is not ok to use, is an incredibly fast-moving target. I remember when Netflix was initially ramping up their streaming services – back in the early days of original content for them. They had just released (I think) season 2 of House of Cards and were talking about their control room. I thought it was fascinating that they could tell what was going on in the audience.
We talked about it. Blogged about it. Were envious of the analytics mastery and tools they had clearly built. They talked about their control rooms – somewhat like what I’ve always imagined a “situation room” would be like. I thought of walls of monitors showing streaming stats and flows, showing titles being watched and particularly focused analytics about the new release. I remember people talking about X% of viewers watched the entire season straight through (and even put up with the “Are you still watching?”).
In short, we thought it was really quite cool. I was envious of their data flow systems.
But now, it seems things have shifted. Netflix tweeted out a tongue-in-cheek sarcastic tweet and is getting in all sorts of hot water for talking about information that shouldn’t be used this way and is private.
To the 53 people who’ve watched A Christmas Prince every day for the past 18 days: Who hurt you?
— Netflix US (@netflix) December 11, 2017
To me, this reaction from so many of “how dare you track my viewing” is silly. OF COURSE they’re tracking. How do you think they know how to make suggestions, or make new shows or even just straight-up personalize your Netflix. This is not new. They simply tweeted about it and people climbed all over it.
Outrage at the outrage aside, what does this say for the information we’re all collecting in our own systems?
To me, this seems like it could very easily slip from being a great use of information to the whole “what?!? You’re using that data you’ve talked about using for quite time now? How dare you!!” This is a problem, IMHO.
If we’re storing information on usage, on data flows and all of that today, do we also need to figure out how to not only turn that information off if it goes out of fashion in the future, but also be able to pare down data sets if that information is not something we continue to want store (for any reason, not just changing times)?
Normally I’d be saying transparency is the issue. People need to know what to expect, how things will be used, that their information is protected, etc. This all sounds good, and sounds like a good idea and solution. But what if the societal norms change? How do we architect for that now to be able to responsibly respond if the need arise?
Better yet, how do we work with the groups that would be upset by these types of data uses, and prevent the problem in the first place? Is that even possible with how quickly people’s expectation may change? It’s a very challenging task.
For the record, I still envy the Netflix analytics and tools and monitoring. Personally, I think the data on viewing habits and the corporate learning that can go on both make the product better, and keep presenting new opportunities for growth. We just have to figure out this whole data privacty thing to keep things moving forward.