Big Data worries

In addition to simple bytes and bits, big data now creates billions of of dollars in business opportunities. Some business organizations, such as retailers and manufacturers, analyze the customer's postal code and purchase records, and discover the limitless power that large data brings to the business development.

According to the research department of the McKinsey Global Cato and McKinsey consulting firm, Big data will yield a 60% profit growth rate for the retail industry. And, according to a recent study by Boston Consulting, customers ' personal data can effectively boost business growth, while businesses can create new products that meet customer needs.

However, if the enterprise can master the degree of data analysis, then large data will give the company a strong competitive advantage, on the contrary, too much data mining, may backfire, is the enterprise in danger. As enterprises continue to grasp the skills of data mining, and the data mining endless, it is likely to lead to the privacy of others are violated, it is as dangerous as people overdue loans or heart attacks.

"In practice, the value of data analysis and processing is the ability to produce some real, good results, rather than data acquisition and excavation," says Kord Davis, author of Big Data Ethics: balancing risk and innovation. ”

Take Nordstrom (Nordstrom), an upscale U.S. chain store that used sensors provided by Euclid technology to get shoppers ' information when customers use smartphones to connect to store Wi-Fi services. But the act has sparked criticism from privacy advocates, which are no longer used by Nordstrom.

Fashion Apparel chain Hints Outfitters require customers who pay with a credit card to provide their zip code (in fact, the customer does not need to provide this information), and then hints Outfitters use this information to obtain the customer's mailing address. Now, hints Outfitters is accused of violating consumer protection laws and is facing a class-action case.

Facebook has been aggressively defending its secretive privacy policy. Facebook is also responding positively to a recent report that Facebook has provided data to the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) about its users. Still, Facebook is stuck in the middle of a dispute over user data privacy.

Due to the excessive data mining, the enterprise's behavior has caused the customer dissatisfaction, has been criticized by the customer the accusation and the legal lawsuit. Data privacy management solution Provider TRUSTe published a survey in September 2013 showing that one-third of Internet users have stopped using a company's Web site for privacy reasons or completely terminated their dealings with a company.

Integrity and transparency

It experts found that the balance between the complex data analysis and customer rights and interests of the relationship, for enterprises, the benefits not only to avoid the company's negative reports and sales decline, but also related to the integrity of enterprises. "Transparency in the use of data will be a competitive advantage for companies in the marketplace," Davis predicts. "People are also beginning to care about what kind of changes their data information can bring to the enterprise, so the enterprise is in a timely and reasonable way to disclose some data to customers, but it can get the trust of customers and make it in a more advantageous position in the market."

However, a lot of CIOs and data scientists are grappling with the problem of how to gain more value while respecting customer rights and winning their trust. With the growth of data storage and the diversification of data management technology, some IT experts are also trying to take some creative ways to prevent data abuse.

Retention Science is a classic example of a start-up company in Santa Monica, California, USA. Retention Science provides its customers with predictive analytics algorithms and data such as household income, shopping records, and credit ratings to help them predict customer purchases and gain more market share. In addition to the data provided by the customer, the analysis data of Retention science is derived from reasonable data provided by third parties.

In order to respect the privacy of customers, but also to achieve the target, Retention Science developed the rules of customer data use, one of which is: Retention science to prohibit the sharing of data between its customers. Gap clothing, for example, is one of its clients, and its customer data to retention science must not be shared with other customers, even if it is anonymous.

In addition, although retention science has a trillion-byte secret data, the company insists that its data scientists sign confidentiality agreements, mostly professors or researchers, to protect customer privacy. "These people are definitely not allowed to share or use the data elsewhere or in their published books and articles," he said. Retention Science's Ceojerry Jao said.

In addition to requiring employees to be responsible for customer data information, Retention Science stipulates that customers ' consent must be obtained in advance when using customer data. "If those customers hesitate to provide their data initially, we will not use their data information," Jao said. ”

Mystery cookie

Obviously, the internal norms are helpful to the development of the enterprise, but the enterprise can also do better, that is, can let the customer see the data related to them personally. BlueKai has a strategy that is a data management platform provider based in Cupertino, California, where marketers and publishers use their platforms to manage and use data to develop targeted market strategies. In 2008, BlueKai established an online portal where customers were able to know exactly how BlueKai was and how many cookies their customers had collected from their websites, which were based on the historical records they browsed.

For example, a woman who buys a red bike online will have many anonymous cookies on her browser if she visits a number of BlueKai customers ' sports products. Based on these browsing records, BlueKai's market customers can launch some bike ads that meet their requirements on her computer.

In the near future, many shoppers on the internet have been able to see ads that are similar to their records, only to realize that this is no coincidence. But BlueKai registry makes the process more transparent, even allowing visitors to sign out, or to update their anonymous files by changing their shopping preferences.

BlueKai's CEO, Omar Tawakol, points out that the advantage of registry is that customers can control their data if their data becomes a target. For this reason, BlueKai also encourages its clients to publish their collection of Customer cookie records on their own web sites to reduce customer concerns about data privacy and to enhance the transparency of corporate work.

Tawakol said: "The perfection of our work is that we don't know who you are, we don't want to know who you are, we don't want to know all the ways we can identify our customers." We just want to let customers know that businesses can get their cookies. ”

BlueKai is not the only big data management company to issue a "backstage Pass", and Acxiom, a marketing technology company based in Little Rock, Arkansas, recently announced the launch of the aboutthedata.com Web site, where people can freely browse the information that the company collects for them. Details to marital status and type of driving vehicle. Visitors can simply type in key personal information, such as names, birthdays, and so on, to find out what their data is used by advertisers for profit.

Acxiom's solutions help simplify data analysis and management, and drive business marketing plans, and BlueKai Tawakol is not surprised. He believes that companies now have no choice but to change the concept of customer data privacy. "A few years ago, consumers had no control over their data companies ' personal data, and consumers should have some control over their data," he said. ”

He says companies are increasingly concerned about their data-application practices and further clarifying and improving practices that will enable businesses to avoid lawsuits and some negative publicity. Moreover, letting consumers understand their data usage is more of an enterprise's public-relations approach than information disclosure. "The only thing I don't know now is which companies are buying data from these consumers and what they are going to do with that data," Davis said. ”

The policy has been criticized

However, sometimes the greater the transparency of an enterprise does not mean that the enterprise can gain more understanding. Some industry giants, such as Facebook and Google, have been criticized for their privacy-related protection agreements, which are difficult to understand and lengthy. Its privacy protection agreement has a full of more than 70 pages, length equivalent to a novella, and the text in a number of vague terms, so that people can not read the agreement in the end what is said. Some of these provisions have even led to investigations by the Federal Trade Commission (mini-advertisements Commission).

A survey published by Brand strategy company Siegel+gale in April 2012 showed that users did not understand how Facebook and Google found, stored, and shared their data. Siegel+gale asked respondents to read the two companies ' privacy-protection agreements and to rate their privacy-protection agreements, with 80 points representing their ability to fully understand the content of the regulations. However, Facebook scored 39 points, and Google scored 36 points, meaning that users were not fully aware of their privacy-protection protocols.

"People sometimes don't understand the privacy agreements they agree to sign," he said. "Because companies make these deals too complicated, it can take a long time to read these service agreements, and people spend about 76 days a year reading the various service agreements," Davis said. ”

Nevertheless, privacy protection agreements still have value in large data applications. NaNs Sivaram, the Customer Manager for Infosys, a global information technology and business consulting service provider, said the company was not just planning the rules of the deal, but also communicating with valuable customers to help them understand the content of the agreement.

In a recent global survey published by Infosys, 39% of respondents said data mining violated their privacy, and 72% thought they received online ads and emails that did not match their interests and needs. However, Sivaram said: "If the results are in their favor, customers are willing to provide their data information." ”

The findings show the ambivalence of customers: On the one hand, they want cost-effective products and services that they expect, and they do not want to see their personal data information for commercial use.

"Retailers need to be more cautious about using customer data if they want to capture their customers." Sivaram said: "At the same time, to avoid violations of customer privacy occurs, so as not to cause unnecessary trouble, loss of customer trust." ”

So what exactly do these companies do? Sivaram that when collecting data, companies should give customers a better reason to share their data willingly. For example, you can tell them that their data information can be exchanged for customer loyalty points and enjoy discounts. In this way, enterprises can provide more and better service to their customers while winning the trust of customers and occupying a competitive position.

This is a mutually beneficial pattern of enterprise and customer, which is equally applicable on the online service.

Develop codes of conduct

The solution, however, is not simply to rely on customers to take the initiative to share their data, decrypt confusing and difficult privacy-protection agreements, or trade credit ratings for store coupons to lure customers. Michael Walker believes that large data experts should observe certain codes of conduct when using and analyzing data, and Michael Walker is the managing partner of system integrators and information Technology Service provider--rose Business Technologies in Denver, USA. He has drafted a 12-page code of Conduct on data analysis and use to standardize the behavior of data scientists that encompass everything from the role and responsibilities of data scientists.

"Companies are also beginning to understand the dangers of two use of data information and misuse of personal data. "Once companies begin to have this idea, they would very much like to have a code of conduct to regulate them so as not to cause unnecessary trouble," Walker said. ”

Michael Walker says data scientists should use a number of moral codes to discipline their behavior, like doctors or lawyers. To this end, he developed a set of guidelines and norms for those who manage and analyze data to regulate the conduct of these data scientists and to protect the privacy of customers.

What Walker thinks data scientists shouldn't do:

1. No scientific analytical method is used in data analysis;

2. In unreasonable and difficult to understand the way, for the customer to do the quality of certification information rating;

3. Asserts that the bad and ambiguous proofs are typical data proofs;

4. Incorrectly applying atypical and ambiguous proofs to simulated reality or misleading;

5. In an unreasonable and difficult to understand the way to do for the customer data quality rating;

6. Asserts that bad and ambiguous data are clear data;

7. Incorrectly applying bad, ambiguous data to simulated reality or misleading;

8. Not choosing the right way to disclose some or all of the data in scientific analysis;

9. No attempt was made to replicate data scientific analysis results;

10. The results of scientific analysis of data that cannot be replicated are not disclosed;

11. Incorrect application of data scientific analysis to simulated reality or misleading;

12. There are no publicly-failed experiments or data demonstrations that are not substantiated, which may be detrimental to the customer;

13. Wisdom is the result of mistakes that still provide such results.

If the data scientist questions the quality of the data and the evidence, he needs to inform the customer of the problem. If the data scientist has provided proof of the data analysis and later learned that the data is incorrect, he needs to take remedial measures, including informing the customer. Data scientists should disclose or label data that he considers wrong.

Revolution Analytics, a statistical software supplier, released a survey in August 2013, showing that 80% of respondents said they were in favor of the need for ethical behaviour in data collection and use. More than half of the data scientists say the code of ethics plays an important role in their research work.

"My solution is to develop codes of conduct that can regulate data experts, and these experts are willing to follow these guidelines to protect private data from clients," he said. "said Walker. With the code of conduct for the data analysis industry, those data analysts reject data analysis and use behavior that undermines the privacy rights of customers from a moral and legal standpoint.

Walker is not the first person to conceive these codes of conduct. Earlier this year, the Institute for Operations Research and Management Studies (INFORMS) drafted a code of conduct for data analysis and use when issuing its CAP certification (certified Analytics Professional).

But the problem, Davis says, is that you need to be clear about what you're doing with the data and see if it matches your company's values. "However, what kind of value companies want to achieve, and whether the enterprise's data practice activities reflect these values, these are completely different from the ordinary business activities of the topic."

Some IT experts believe that data scientists need to do more than just protect personal privacy. "They also need to extract some of the best from the data and draw up some interesting ideas." WatchDox's chief product officer, Ryan Kalember, said. WatchDox is a security tool provider in Paloato, California, USA.

Market inspection

No matter who the privacy concerns-customers, business executives or data scientists-one thing is certain: data privacy has become a hot topic. Even the U.S. government is investigating companies that collect and manage customer data and asks them to provide customers with the right way to control their personal data. Industry watchers are also supportive of the government's approach.

The revelation of the "Prism Gate incident" of the NSA has greatly reduced public trust in the government and is sceptical about the government's protection of private privacy. This shift in privacy perceptions of personal data is likely to prompt the US government to initiate an investigation into the data-collection reform program, Tawakol said.

"The emergence of relevant market mechanisms is much faster than the advent of relevant laws and regulations." Tawakol said: "As your data is being used more and more, you will know more clearly what information you can get." Companies that insist on not disclosing the use of data will eventually lag behind the market. ”

Walker shared his vision for the future, saying: "Data analysis will bring more benefits and help companies tailor their products and services to customers, but this is based on the premise that companies fully respect the privacy of their personal data." He added that businesses would eventually lose their customers if they found out that companies were spying on them, or if they used improper means to steal and use their data.