Privacy Talk with Gilbert Hill, Privacy Technologist & Entrepreneur: What is the future digital marketing on privacy age?
This interview is talking about digital marketing and blockchain.
Kohei is having great time discussing with data privacy and marketing trend with Gilbert Hill.
This interview outline:
- What is the preferable solution on blockchain?
- What is the future digital marketing on privacy age?
- What is the best practice with blockchain and data privacy?
- What do you envision at DPPA?
- Message to listeners
- What is the preferable solution on blockchain?
The other area where blockchain can provide an elegant solution is with smart contracts. Based on smart contracts are basically automated agreements to do something now, it could be something like sell an asset, it could be transfer some data, or in this case, the right to use data.
Now, combined with some of the new things that coming like you know, this data unions is a structure. This means that now using a blockchain I can agree what can and can’t be done with my data. I can essentially forget about this and have this flow through at scale into products which can then be bought by advertisers on data market.
So you have that kind of provenance, which has previously been missing. And I think the final element with with Blockchain are payment rails and tokens, because if you think about if we have there’s going to be an economy with lots and lots of people getting paid mostly low value transactions around their data as value on a data daily basis.
That crypto is a really cost effective way to do that. And so, I mean, after launching, you know, it was an amazing experiment that we did a Tapmydata, and it created I think, a bit like with cookies, it created new sorts of information about something and blew up lots of our preconceptions.
So after launching, Tapmydata’s own token last year. I then took the opportunity to exit the company. And now I help a number of blockchain companies with their privacy and data strategy and try and link this with that huge, you know, centralized world around data commerce. Through the data privacy protocol, Alliance, and also teaching. So it’s nice to see, you know, Tapmydata, in some ways, pioneered this ecosystem, and now it’s growing really rapidly.
Kohei: That sounds very interesting. I assume that’s been a very complex is the beginning of these industries. I assume that’s the challenge is for the companies to work with the data protections, then they also deliver it in the blockchain. technical performance, this should be the inclusions for the data development the futures, but actually is not easy to find the best solution to fit, one-fit-all approach is not realistic at times.
So my next question about the marketing space and from the histories then digital marketing is, it’s a kind of the weapons of the companies to push their contents, push the business to make a sales, opportunities through the digital contents or digital distributions on advertisement network, which was a great ecosystem so far.
- What is the future digital marketing on privacy age?
However, it’s becoming more strict to protect the consumer data under the GDPR, CCPA in California, that’s very strict rule. For the data, privacy, the data protections. So from your perspective, how the digital marketing landscape has been a changed since the data protection regulatory requirements are coming out such as the GDPR, the CCPA in this moment?
Gilbert: I think that’s a really good summary. And I think the answer is that it’s changed slowly and then very quickly, and like you say, there’s all sorts of new regulations
which, which mean that large companies who want to engage into to market like you say that that’s a key tool for them, have to take a Pan-European, a Pan-Global approach to risk and also have to look at some of the assumptions upon which that digital marketing ecosystem were based.
And I think personally when I started thinking about privacy and marketing, lots of people and to be honest often with vested interests, insisted that privacy was dead. We’ve all heard that and that people in general, and young people in particular, don’t care about privacy and have no idea what happens to their data. And I felt I mean, as a parent, I knew that this was wrong and I wanted to prove it, it’s wrong.
But actually where we are at the moment with problems we see and some of the excesses around data is that it’s a product of the online value exchange for data deal being totally out of work. So you know, the value of services that people receive from free stuff online is greatly exceeded by the money, a few now, a few huge companies are making about, making from them, and I think those before GDPR there was very little public education about this in terms of what was going on with our data.
And I think GDPR was huge because for the first time, popular media was seeded with an effective campaign by governments to make people aware of their rights, and businesses respect of their responsibilities around data.
And I actually had, a few years ago, that moment on the London bus where I did overhear two old ladies talking about data privacy, and that’s also fed through into what companies have experienced in their contact centers. In terms of customer service. The first thing people ask about now when they’re unhappy about something is how did you get my data?
So that was a huge watershed moment. I think. The danger was that when it all settled down with GDPR is that companies would sort of fall into the pattern of cookie banners and disclosure and going through the motions.
You know, we have to tell you this because GDPR, that nothing would change. And I think despite its complexity — GDPR is a huge, a blunt instrument, and an unfortunate product of this is that it’s harder for voluntary groups and small businesses to use data legitimately, or Charities is a good example.
While big platforms can achieve baseline compliance easily and in the case of Google even start to act like regulators themselves. And in a marketing context, well cookies or third party ones, at least, seem to finally be on the way out, there are a range of proposed cookie alternatives on the market.
And others, you know, we’re starting to emerge as well, and these range from things like universal ID solutions cookieless tracking, and contextual targeting, and Google’s privacy sandbox and FloC — federated learning of cohorts, and other frameworks.
So, where we are, it is that the marketing industry is moving on, but the problem there is that most of the new centralized privacy proposals on the table from platforms are in conflict with the direction of competition and an antitrust concern and this was you know, the concern flows through to brands, that this is going to lead to a lack of buyer power, or you know, that there’ll be regulators disrupting this process before that the engine kind of melts down.
And regulators, particularly in Europe, have made clear that they want standards and protocols for best practice around ID and now data to come from a consensus a group of actors in the space, not one already incredibly powerful player. So I think, you know, for marketing, sadly, there is no one solution.
There’s no silver bullet to fix all the old practices of web2.0 use of data, you know, which is around web two was around harvesting siloing monetizing and monopolizing data’s value and our attention.
But this is an opportunity for the whole system to start thinking about how to reinvent itself and that’s why new forums and communities or safe spaces, like the DPPA, with which I’m involved. They bring start to bring in these new elements of decentralized web3.0 blockchain tech are also important because brands want to move beyond cookies to fair trade data.
Here every day brands saying to me, we want to, you know, to have fair trade data, we have data, clean rooms, we want to be wearing the white hats with data.
And of course, that data is also de-risked, and has a higher value. But this means that as digital marketers, we do need to get used to doing more, less volume of data, at least initially. So it’s forced us to be more mindful of what we’re trying to achieve, which I think is a good thing.
Kohei: I see. yeah, it’s a really complicated, compared to the early of beginning to use the personal data, which was really simple, then just profiling the data through some of the data source integration, then synthesize and input the usage of the data. But the problem is all the data should be there based on the consent based, transparencies, it’s very hard to convince the customers to be given the data for you.
That’s a very challenging for the marketers. It’s a increasing cost to the data collection right now. Yeah, that’s a very interesting insight. So I want to explore the next question is with you blockchain again, and I think the regulation it’s always against of the new technologies, it’s not always but most of the times. So, the blockchain is also no doubt with it.
Among the blockchain communities, we any argument especially the using the personal data, which type of the data should be there storing and processing the gains, till the data, subject rights such as the we have to protect the right to be forgotten any things.
In case of the store on the blockchain, it’s going to be sensitive data. It’s not achievable in some time, to some of the architectures so how we should to take balance regulatory issues and new technologies, especially the decentralized for the data protection?
- What is the best practice with blockchain and data privacy?
Gilbert: I mean, that’s a big, big question. And you’re right, there’s a debate has continued to rage. And I think because blockchain is public and decentralized, there has been an assumption that in all cases, blockchain and privacy just don’t mix. And I think that’s starting to change. And, in particular, what I predict is that we’re all going to be hearing a lot about the use of some elements of blockchain in particular zero knowledge proofs over the next few years.
Now, put simply, zero knowledge proofs are a type of cryptography that keeps details of a transaction hidden.
So for example, I could prove that I know the password to an account without entering the password and risking exposure. Or another example, did I have enough money to cover my rent for the next year without telling some, you know, random broker over details, my personal finances, it’s, you know, that embeds that kind of need to know aspect of data, which for us, as you know, privacy advocates is so important, and we compare it you know, to on web2 to platforms like Facebook, all our data is captured and monetized centrally and often without our knowledge.
So, on the open blockchain, everything is public. So I think that zero knowledge proofs can start to allow approvers and verifiers. If we move from holding data to people and organizations transacting it directly, it means that they can interact safely and transparently at least in principle, and you know, you mentioned regulation being against, you know, or wary of new technology.
I think the first example and practical application of this, of these zero knowledge proofs was with privacy coins. Now, the most common example is Monero.
Now, these are a cast of crypto currency, and they provide private and anonymous transactions by obscuring their origin and destination. And you know, Monero, it’s interesting in particular, it was launched as an open source project almost 10 years ago, and its founders wanted to address a critical flaws in currencies like Bitcoin, which are its traceability, and their belief that privacy and anonymity are most important aspects of electronic cash.
Now, obviously, this has meant led to a situation where these coins they are used in you know, for example, a lot of white hacker ransoms. They are, you know, are used for not all the right reasons in many cases, and although they’re not illegal, are banned in some jurisdictions and have a sort of a shady reputation.
But I don’t think that they should be dismissed from giving us insight to privacy tech and the way that we can use these technologies in our own challenges and it’s interesting to see actually, how some of the tech and tactics from this base.
It have lead into the mainstream data marketing space. So I mean, obviously Apple’s iOS 15 update has made a big feature, its focus focus on on email security and privacy, and it’s made a big feature of burner email addresses to their email privacy offering, all of which have been socialized in the crypto space.
So I think there’s a really interesting over the crypto space is creating a lot of these technologies, which I think if we approach them with a privacy mindset are actually really useful, give us really useful insights, and perhaps some technical solutions to the challenges as we move beyond sort of baseline compliance.
Kohei: Absolutely, then, we’re gonna dig in best practice then just to synchronize a new idea that will narrow this with privacy preserving the old processing, I think that’s the kind of the new technical solution, should we deploy it to the many industries as well. Then we have to seek the use cases with the new technology, especially the decentralized governance model,that could be working in some of the ways to protect the privacy for the users so that there should be ideal.
I think your initiative, it’s a data privacy protocol alliance is related to this mission then those data should be more protected and should be used for the user driven purpose. There will be a deal on the marketing perspective. I want to ask you, how do you envision of the DPPA work then? How do you want to involve the other stakeholders to work together for the future?
- What do you envision at DPPA?
Gilbert: I think I mean, it’s interesting what you say about privacy can be helped by crypto. I actually think that it’s a two way street. But actually privacy can help crypto grow up in some ways. And ironically, some of the most widely used web3.0 tech like the Metamask wallet, it picks up loads of personally identifiable data, and it puts it out there, so that’s the thing with free space, very much a work in progress.
But as someone who’s been active in both the web3.0 space, and advises, you know, conventional businesses as well, on privacy, I’ve actually found that most of the crypto people particularly techies, have the same set of beliefs around personal data, but we do in privacy tech, and they’re very receptive to approaches such as privacy by design, and putting this into practice and they don’t have no you know, large amounts of legacy tech and data systems.
So at the end of the day, there are a lot of parallels with big tech, big data, Blockchain space and I mean, having been involved in you know, things like the Internet Advertising Bureau, I was that ran an agency and also being a member for a number of years of the IAPP.
I felt that there was there were times to be honest, where I felt that I didn’t really belong and I wish that there was a space where, you know, you could bring together representatives of the existing data trade, and these new players, web3.0 players and actually have a bigger role for sort of socializing this tech because I know that and brands, and big players in the data space, want to look at more decentralized solutions. I mean, you’ve got even Facebook now with their rebrand to Meta are explicitly saying that they want for their own cryptocurrency.
They don’t want they don’t believe that they have all the solutions, which is very humble of them, and that they want to they want to create an alliance so when I was approached by the Data Privacy Protocol Alliance at a very early stage, I thought this was a really great way to bring together some of the players in web3.0 with brands and data buyers who wanted insights, and also who were looking for new markets, because many of the younger people that we talked about earlier, they’re not they’re not on Facebook, they’re not on and they’re very guarded about their data.
And they’re not accessible. And these are really attractive. target customers with whom brands wants to build up trust, and a lot of these web3.0 tech is a way to do it. AndI think, in terms of what the data privacy protocol Alliance expects this to lead to in the future. I think it’s agreed standards and protocols, but also, it’s the start to have tech coming together.
And you know, if you’re thinking of one, you know, killer app. It’s a platform for data unions that I mentioned earlier. Data unions are a way for us to get together collectively to negotiate around our rights for data, what happens with our data, and if and how we can earn from this.
And I think it’s something which I’m excited about the DPPA which has a number of members who come who are data unions, and there’s one particular member Pool, who are in the UK.
They’re building an incubator right now for hundreds of new unions. And this is something I think these that the unions, decentralized marketplaces, and commonly agreed practical standards are all things that are necessary if we’re going to build this web3 ecosystem and migrate a lot of the existing advertisers to that and that’s absolutely the DPPA and focus.
Kohei: Quite awesome. I have never been web3 based advertisement so farm some of the big companies IBM, it’s been a major consortium where bidding boards is some advertisement company, that they are more centric approaches now the decentralized, honestly that’s a big problems.
I think those are very great commitment to create a new market for the futures that based on the decentralized Consortium. What I’m very exciting to see that how this worked in the futures advertisement industry instead of the using the centralized ecosystem that the big companies been organizing amd that is great thing.
So yeah, finally, I want to ask you about the message for the listeners. You have many experience. And great things in the new technologies, marketing. That’s the insight for all the all listeners. So could you give us any message from that?
- Message to listeners
Gilbert: Yeah, I think my key message is to share and share and share and by that I mean that the levels of best practice and privacy will only be lifted if we have access to real data about the state of health organizations. When it comes to data privacy and people’s rights.
And there is unglamorous thing but you know, I’m a big fan of data privacy impact assessments. And when I’m working with new projects now, there’s one project in particular, a data union called swash, they did a data protection Impact Assessment assessment before they began as a first step in their business parents had before they bought any code around how they would basically help people monetize their data.
They did that and they fed it back immediately to a university in Canada, to be used by their PhD students and analyzed themselves. So that started a kind of a sort of a feedback loop where they would then work on the feedback from the university, and it would build a knowledge as sort of a store of knowledge outside of that organization, which is now publicly accessible.
And I think it’s those things that started with elements of cookie data. Now we’re starting to talk about things like data unions and data, DPIAs. The more that we can share, the more we will understand how we are going to replace something which is hugely complex.
So I think sharing is my key takeaway. The second one is also to try and look beyond your own geographic area. And I mean, one example is, China’s PIPL privacy law just came into effect for the first member, and it’s been described by Linklaters law firm as one of the strictest privacy laws in the world. Now, it’s my homework to read and understand more of that before we next speak.
Kohei: Cool. The Chinese law is also the great impact to our countries, too, because it’s very close to ours to a lot of Japanese companies outsourcing the business where then China has been a great opportunity, but it’s a very important for us to looking after Chinese upgrades.
Many guidelines will be published and they also they have based on the security purpose, that is very challenging for the company, but we have to collaborate it to work on the matters.
So yeah, that’s very amazed. So, thank you for having Gilbert, this time to great conversations. So we are very happy to collaborate it before the future digital marketing and the blockchain future data protection industry. So thank you for having this time.
Gilbert: It’s pleasure, thank you.
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