(Lack of) Data Privacy.

• Position: BUSINESS & FINANCE

Does data privacy even matter anymore? There are conflicting reports detailing how data privacy works, when its safeguards fail, and what to expect in the future. There needs to be a middle ground, where consumers trust providers to use their data responsibly, and marketers employ cleaner user data to create better online experiences.

Can customers trust their personal data when it is captured online? Perceptions are dangerously skewed right now, from a widespread mistrust of media to underreported cybersecurity breaches of companies that rely on customer information. How much are B2Bs willing to lose if their customers' data is compromised? More importantly, how can consumers and businesses coexist in sharing personal data?

There is a disconnect between willingly surrendering privacy data and the consequences of a data breach. Even as businesses struggle to survive the COVID-19 landscape, their customers believe their personal data is less secure than ever. There also is the cost of doing business: a single data breach has a global average toll of more than $3,000,000, according to IBM. Corollary effects include lost productivity as well as indeterminate costs incurred by poor data quality, which are not easily quantifiable.

One of the biggest market challenges these days is "privatization." Just as companies use regulations and fear to drive customers to their paid proprietary platforms, anxiety among consumers about their increased exposure can corrupt platforms' functionality and degrade the quality of users' experiences.

Not enough companies have the strategy and IT resources to play fair with private data. Meanwhile, too many exist solely to collect information on online behaviors, and demographics--basically, you have invited a data vampire in.

This challenge hits hard in the B2B market, marketing, and cybersecurity, among other disciplines, but it is important to define data privacy in the context of users' everyday habits.

Data privacy describes practices companies use to ensure data shared by their customers only is used for its stated purpose. Compounding the issue, personal data especially is vulnerable as the COVID-19 virus has disrupted business, making protection a serious consumer issue. This remains an age when social media inhales a person's demographics and spits out whatever saleable item its algorithm has matched to that...