Google's shared endorsements and the "creepy line"

Google recently stirred up a minor controversy by announcing changes to its terms and conditions designed it to allow more Google+ profile data in ads shown to a user’s friends.

The search giant has made modifications to its policies centred on the concept of “shared endorsements”. Multiple media reports interpreted the change as meaning Google will now start displaying Google+ usernames and photographs in some ads.

Marketing Land notes that Google has been allowing advertisers to show endorsements and photographs from Google+ users onto their AdWords ads for two years. The company is instead changing its policy to allow for the display of additional information, including, for example, product reviews from Google Play.

The feature is arguably optional. Endorsements will only be shared with those people Google+ users have chosen to share content with, and Google’s settings page gives users the option to opt out of shared endorsements altogether. But sharing is enabled by default.

But the new initiative still raises some thorny questions about privacy and has prompted a handful of Google+ users to change their profile pictures to photos of Google chairman Eric Schmidt in protest.

A US senator has also asked the Federal Trade Commission to evaluate whether the new terms violate Google’s earlier commitments regarding its privacy policy.

Jan Dawson, Ovum chief telecoms analyst for devices and platforms, said these kind of reactions are par for the course by now. “The fuss over these things always dies down pretty quickly - consumer outrage over privacy is always short-lived and rarely lives on longer than the news cycle.”

But she noted the minor backlash serves as “another great illustration of the fact that the interests of companies like Google and Facebook are almost always in conflict with those of their users. Companies that make money from advertising benefit from being able to use as much information about users as possible, while users would like to keep their information as private as possible, and that’s an inherent tension.”

Ian Bertram, Asia-Pacific head of research at Gartner, said Google is very good at pushing the boundaries and then waiting for a reaction. “This is them testing the waters with consumers. If they get too much pushback they’ll obviously ratchet all of that back. And they’ve got an agile enough environment and infrastructure that they can do that very quickly, at the flick of a switch.”

More broadly, whenever a company pushes privacy barriers with big data or other initiatives, the public debate is dominated by the negative reactions, he said. But consumer reactions are usually more evenly divided.

He gave the example of the famous case of Target in the US sending out marketing material to consumers based on shopping personas, and as a result accidentally informing the parents of a 16-year-old girl that she was pregnant.

Bertram has polled rooms full of people whether they think Target’s actions crossed an ethical line, and the last three times it has been a 50-50 split. “So as the boundaries get pushed by the likes of Google and others, we’ll only ever really hear the negative side of things, what is taken away.”

Google’s recent initiative serves as a good example for other companies looking to monetise big data, but also as a cautionary tale, Bertram said. “What Google has really failed to do is ... stress the customer value. I think we should be looking at what they’re doing, and the reaction that they provoke, [to determine] how to improve on it so we don’t cross the creepy line.”

Google should have been more transparent and open about the changes to its terms and conditions, he said. But it will also be important for society to sort out the ethical, legal and cultural implications associated with the aggregation, use and sale of personal data.

Guy Cranswick, IBRS analyst, said there are some important distinctions between the Google case and the privacy implications of big data. “Big data is the collection and aggregation of data, which implies a use or personal data or breach of privacy as the user has not consented to the use,” he said. “In this case the user is obliged to consent and consequently the use of the name is conceived to add commercial value, which Google will gain.”

He said that while Google’s policy changes may cause alarm at first, “as people adjust to the terms of service and how they are being leveraged, it may settle as ... people [come to] accept that they are being monetised for the corporation. That seems to be the trend.”

Image courtesy of g4ll4is under CC