Marketing Research – Escaping the Privacy Panic Cycle: Consumer concerns and emerging innovation
Carl Szabo, policy counsel at NetChoice, said that companies need to get out ahead of the privacy panic cycle.
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At the same time, Szabo saw an “opportunity” for privacy activists to “try to figure out what is going on” with a new or emerging technology, such as facial recognition or mobile apps, “rather than doing this race to regulation, instead try to figure out what is going on.” Go talk to the companies developing or selling the technology so that you can educate consumers, he suggested to privacy activists, “instead of just calling the Washington Post” and raising the privacy alarm.
Instead of using Occam’s razor to understand emerging technologies, Szabo lamented that many privacy activists default to “Occam’s broom: taking the simplest explanation [that a company wants to provide something innovative for consumers] and then sweeping it under the rug.”