what a more privacy-aware internet could look like
DoorDash is suing New York City after the city passed a law that would require the food delivery platform to share its customers’ data with the restaurants for which it fulfills delivery orders.
DoorDash called the law a “shocking and invasive intrusion of consumers’ privacy.”
The law is scheduled to take effect in December and would require delivery companies to share customer information such as names, phone numbers, emails, and delivery addresses.
On the one hand, DoorDash is right that its customers should get to choose whether the company shares their information with other businesses. On the other hand, there’s a compromise here that should be obvious and actually puts customers first: letting the customer choose how much of their data DoorDash can store in the first place as well as with whom DoorDash shares their information.
In other words, NYC should empower food delivery customers to Reklaim their data.
Facebook is exploring a bunch of ways to allow businesses to offer customers a more ‘personalized’ experience on its platform without necessarily targeting them with personalized ads.
In marketing speak, personalization means tailoring marketing messages to the consumer, typically based on their information. Facebook is a prime example of a company that has gotten rich by sharing customer data with advertisers and allowing them to target its users with highly ‘personalized’ ads.
But the privacy movement has pushed back on personalization and the rampant, and often untransparent, data collection on which it depends.
That’s what makes Facebook’s shift interesting. In shifting from a focus on personalized ads to one on so-called personalized experiences — better customer service, business-to-consumer messaging, etc. — the digital marketing juggernaut is revealing what more privacy-aware interactions between businesses and customers online could look like.
We’d wager that, given the choice between ads matched to their behavior and better customer service, the average internet user will take the latter.
The battle for digital privacy is reshaping the internet
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