It seems the “blowback” I mentioned last week is starting to…well, “blow.”
Today, the New York Times did a story about the “unpaid work” mobile device owners are doing for OTT players like Apple and Google. This piggybacks a myriad of write ups related to Congressional members now launching inquiries at those and other companies about how they are using data and how easy is it for people to “opt out” of being tracked as they move from location to location.
When I see use of the phrase “spy phones” used to describe devices ultimately used to deliver location-based services, I wonder why transparency isn’t the name of the game for all stakeholders looking to monetize location data.
This is a time of critical importance if location-based services and marketing is to reach its full potential. How telcos, OTT players and marketing/advertising companies handle this looming PR nightmare can affect the revenue-generating potential for everyone—whether AT&T, Verizon, Foursquare or Gowalla.
No matter how easy all stakeholders claim it is to choose to whom our data is sent, everyone in the value chain should be doing more, and now rather than later, to show just how “easy” and “effective” it is for mobile device users to secure their data. For now, most people really do not pay attention to their privacy settings, as proven by a the site aptly named PleaseRobMe.com, in which data was easily pulled from Twitter and Foursquare to get people’s usernames and self-reported locations.
In a time where politicians are looking for any bandwagon to jump on, it’s important to be proactively marketing the positives of location-based services—and to do so before legislation is pushed on the industry because of poor communication about how people can protect their GPS coordinates from exploitation, if they so choose. My guess is most people will opt into location services where they see value, as with AT&T’s FamilyMap or Verizon’s Family Locator. But it only takes a few uninformed legislators or perhaps an episode of Law & Order about family data abused for illicit purposes to create fear about location-based services. The sooner the technology and education efforts start to show its flexibility, ease of use and safety, the better for all companies that want to monetize location information.