Lose my number, buster! Receiving pesky phone calls?

One stop shopping. There is only one Do Not Call list for both land/house lines and mobile phones.

https://www.donotcall.gov/

This list is maintained by the US Federal government and all companies that use telemarketing for business must abide by these rules. Once your number is on the list, all companies have up to 30 days to remove you from their list.

Use the same link to submit a complaint if you receive a unsolicited call 30 days after you signed up.

What will happen after you register, will it stop all telemarketing calls?

No. Placing your number on the National Do Not Call Registry will stop most telemarketing calls, but not all. Because of limitations in the jurisdiction of the FTC and FCC, calls from or on behalf of political organizations, charities, and telephone surveyors would still be permitted, as would calls from companies with which you have an existing business relationship, or those to whom you’ve provided express agreement in writing to receive their calls. However, if you ask a company with which you have an existing business relationship to place your number on its own do-not-call list, it must honor your request. You should keep a record of the date you make the request.

Whats behind Mobile Opt-In?

Most mobile programs require a ‘double opt-in’.

Here is what it is and why it is there:

In order for someone to start to receive text messaging they must opt in for the communications. This opt in process is different between email on mobile/text messaging. This is due to the cost of text messaging and mobile plans. Remember not all text messaging plans are created equal, there are still mobile phone plans out there that charge per text message. To prevent unnecessary costs to the consumer there is a double opt in rule to ensure the subscriber is aware of what they are signing up for. This also helps prevent spam onto your phone

In order for a company to send you a text messaging or IMs (different than a mobile apps) you must agree to 2 things:

enroll into the mobile program (subscribe)
and validate that the mobile number that was given is in fact your mobile number. Usually the users is required to text ‘Y’ or ‘Yes’ back to the confirmation text – this would be your second opt in.

Mobile communication subscriptions work a little different than email subscriptions. Due to the cost structure when you enroll into a mobile program, you are only enrolling into a single program. Unlike email, when you subscribe to receive emails from retailer – your email is enrolled into all the retailers email programs. *Mobile requires the user to opt into every program individually.

Ideally this mechanism should be sufficient to establish the subscriber’s willingness to participate in the program and possession of the handset/device. The opt-in applies to the specific program and should not be used as a blanket approval to promote other programs, products or services.

When you opt out of the mobile program, the return messaging should reference the specific program the subscriber has opted-out from. No further messages should be sent to the subscriber from this program, including marketing messages for any related or unrelated programs

* email programs – plural, this is what we call in the industry global opt in and local opt out

Where you at? A little lesson on tracking

So many saw this news article on NBC News last week. And so many people have been re-posting and sharing. Even my parents discussed it with their friends last night at a BBQ on the lake. This morning, text messages were sent with instructions to the group – on how to turn this tracking off!

Is Your Smartphone Tracking Where You Go?

Its not just your smartphone device that is tracking you: So many things in your life have the ability to track us – not just our phones. These are your digital footprints. Various apps also capture tracking details, not just your phone. Think fitness trackers, even Facebook. Digital photos capture more than where the photo was taken, it includes facial recognition/tagging tracking who was with you, dates lat/long, type of device, etc. Today’s connected cars are doing the same thing as your smartphone. And with the latest Wi-fi enabled cars – the car not only tracks where you go, but who is with you.

So the next time you are asked for permission to ‘use your current location, or update your settings so that locations are turned on’; you can reconsider what that really means to your privacy. Is the convenience factor enough of a value exchange for us that you will allow this app to know your location now and later on.

Anything that connects to the internet or has its own GPS tracking has the ability to know where you are and most likely save that information.

A little bit about Metadata

You have probably heard this word before – METADATA. But if you are not in the industry you may not understand what it means exactly.

In a nut shell, metadata is ‘data about data’. Clear as mud, right?

Metadata has been around long before the digital age. The Dewey Decimal System is metadata, it is data about books/references. It helps to group, find, search and standardized the information you are looking for but not the information itself. If you ever used a filing cabinet; the labels on the draw would be metadata, describing what is in the drawer, and any labeling on the file folders would also be considered metadata. If your file folders were color coded, that would be considered metadata, too. The content within those files would be considered data. In the digital world, data can be a sleuth of things, it could be product information, code, pictures or assets.

Metadata keeps the data organized

If it’s free, you are the product. Are you giving it away for free?

I love this TED video. Although it pushes for what the email privacy could look like in the future; it highlights the free point. If you are not buying/paying for the service, you are the product. These free services may not cost you in $$, but there is a value exchange. You get a free service, the provider gets data insight into your interests, and in turn creates/sells targeted advertising based on your data. Innocent – probably. Greedy – definitely.

TED video: Andy Yen: Think your email’s private? Think again

After all email services are still businesses that need to make money to keep the lights on.

The most valuable thing about providing an email service is the analytics data that it has access too. Your email provides (Google, Yahoo, etc) with a vast amount of information about you. Not only do they have the ability to capture your profile information, but your browsing information too. Email has the added benefit of providing information about the people you contact. In other words, gmail learns a lot about non-gmail users by scanning emails sent to & from gmail users. This effectively helps target advertisements to everybody.

Many privacy “agreements’ are yes/no — you’re either in or out — and especially online, it’s not reasonable to expect people to decline them (since use of basic services is often at stake).

If you needed someone else’s thoughts, here is Wikipedia explaining the use of ‘You As A Product’.

All data may be personal but it’s not all private

Ultimately, this issue is likely to become even more argumentative in the future as wearable devices, smart appliances, connected cars, and other elements of daily life become linked together. These misperceptions are enhanced by privacy policies that are often difficult to interpret, even to the small number of consumers who do try to read them. (yes I’m one of them!)

Most folks think that opting-in to a privacy policy actually protects them, instead of releases their data for corporate uses. More than 4 out of 5 of mobile apps don’t explain what data gets collected/how it’s used.

FCC will be posting new surveys on you as in individual asking for

your expectations in data sharing.

Most terms and conditions (those pesky T&Cs that you must agree to use the app) use the words ‘shared with our partners’ which can open the possibles to use the data collected.

My first blog

….so what

Ever wonder why you receive unsolicited emails about competitive products you recently searched on the web? Or why you started receiving credit card applications in the mail box for your X-something-in-law that never shared an address with you nor have you had contact since your brother’s divorce? How to these companies get this information?

Are there any mysteries you want to solve? How do they know? What do they know?

I want to know you what you want to know.

what is private?
what is personally identifiable information?
what’s the difference between opt-out and spam?

Leave your questions below and let’s get the discussion of digital data going!