Dive Brief:
- In an expected move, the FCC under the Trump administration dropped regulations protecting consumer data from ISPs and in response three states so far — Maryland, Minnesota and Montana — have responded by looking to implement their own privacy restrictions on how ISPs and other companies can collect and share consumer data, per Recode.
- The FCC regulation that was recently overturned would have required ISPs like AT&T and Verizon to get an opt-in from customers before collecting and sharing data like browsing histories and online activities.
- Consumer groups like Privacy and Data Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology are working with state legislators crafting privacy regulations to ensure those rules would survive legal challenges from the major telecoms, which had heavily lobbied for and applauded the rollback at the federal level.
Dive Insight:
Consumer data as a topic is likely to get a lot of sunlight over the coming months as issues around the FCC and telecoms are expected to remain in the news. There is also the possibility that more states will join Maryland, Minnesota and Montana in protecting consumer data along with the upcoming contentious debate on net neutrality. As a result, it is shaping up to be a big year for consumer privacy issues, which means brands should accelerate their efforts to ensure they are being transparent about how they are collecting and using customer data.
The debate around consumer data and privacy cuts both ways for marketers. On one hand, copious amounts of data — the more detailed the better — is the lifeblood of digital marketing, especially for high-level tactics like predictive analytics as well as for targeting and personalization. On the other hand, transparency promotes trust in marketing messages and brands.
When consumer data privacy becomes news, two things tend to happen. People are shocked to find out how much of their personal information is collected and sold without their knowledge which throws the entire tacit agreement of brand transparency and marketing into question, and a certain number of those consumers take active steps to remove themselves from the group of people whose data gets collected by installing ad block software, opting out of sharing data after researching privacy policies, and even taking the more extreme step of using a virtual private network (VPN) to completely hide their online activity.