Data, Data, Everywhere: A NAA Blog Reading

Brenda A. McCabe, MBA's personal experience has contributed to the work at Next Act Advisors. The Growth Strategies of NAA clients are always informed by current regulations and the understanding of why things have evolved to where they are because of the regulations and how they might change in the future. Enjoy this special Founder's Sandbox Podcast episode of Brenda reading one of her published blogs, "Data, Data, Everywhere" ; Now that all our data – private and enterprise, is out there, how can enterprises uphold trust?

You can read along to this blog with your NAA subscription at : https://nextactadvisors.com/data-data-everywhere/

 

transcript:

01:12
Hello, this is Brenda McCabe with Next Act Advisors here reading an original blog published in June 2023. Data, data everywhere. It's about data and trust. While still living and working in Europe, I joined Facebook, ACA, Meta,  when my children who lived and worked in other countries asked

01:41
to befriend me online. They are now living and settled into another stage of their lives and no longer are on this platform. I myself deplatform when researching  and learning of the improper use of personal data of the tech player. Stateside, I maintained European cell phone services for many years. I was often struck by the difference in media and information provided to me

02:09
with online sources when contrasting with others in conversations on international business matters. I was new to the then nascent algorithms and machine learning that contributed to today's generative AI platforms. My own foray into blogging with a website launched in Europe in 2013 and operating until 2020 was often targeted by bots. In 2018,

02:38
My website was aligned with a privacy policy that included General Data Privacy Regulation, GDPR, by which consumers had the right to opt-in to receiving information from my website. My personal experience has contributed to the work at NextAct Advisors. The growing strategies of my clients are always informed by current regulations and the understanding of why things have evolved to where they are because of the regulations

03:08
and how they might change in the future. I enjoy explaining how things are done, why they are that way, and how your business model might be impacted or may change the regulations. The month of June of 2023, I shared original content from work with an enterprise SaaS company addressing a very large market with many actors and moving parts, including AI, privacy,

03:38
and overall regulations in a race to make better informed decisions with accurate, timely, and trustworthy sources. The theme of June 2023, and still prevalent today, at Next Act Advisors is data, data everywhere. Now that all our data, private and enterprise, is out there, how can enterprises uphold trust? Compliance and privacy.

04:06
The history that drives the regulations of personal data usage has its origin in World War II and the improper use of personal data. Many business models, regulations, and the financial markets operating today were formed because of trying to keep the peace after war. While World War II was still raging in the period 1939 to 1945, the Bretton Woods system was negotiated.

04:35
In 1944, for 21 days, 730 delegates from all 44 allied nations gathered in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, for the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference. There they fully negotiated a monetary order intended to govern monetary relations among independent states. In a Time article, which is referenced in my blog,

05:04
It was published on the eve of May 24, 2018, before enactment of the GDPR, the General Data Privacy Regulation. Anu Bratford, a professor of law and director of the European Legal Studies Center at Columbia Law School, shared the following. There is this misperception that it's a protectionist response, but the roots are much deeper.

05:32
We trace them back to World War II and the atrocities of the Nazis who systematically abused private data to identify Jews and other minority groups."  The law enacted in 2018 requires companies to ask consumers whether they can collect their data, answering promptly if asked what it will be used for, and disclose significant data breaches within 72 hours.

06:00
The failure to comply could result in fines of up to €20 million,  more than $23 million, or  4 % of the company's worldwide annual revenue. Meta recently was fined, as announced by Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner, for a record €2 billion, that's $1.3 billion,  in order to stop transferring data collected from Facebook users in Europe to the United States.

06:30
About 10 % of Metta's worldwide ad revenue came from ads delivered to Facebook users in EU countries. In 2022, Metta had revenue of nearly $117 billion. There will certainly be an appeal.

06:49
California introduced the California Consumer Protection Act, CCPA, in 2020, followed by California Consumer Rights Act in 2023, two different regulations that regulate data privacy  and consumer protection. Enforcement of the regulation requires an agency that is called California's  Privacy Protection Agency, where they tapped ASCAN

07:16
Soltani, a former top technologist at the Federal Trade Commission, to lead it in 2022. Stay tuned for further news. California and other states are filling a vacuum left by Congress. Lawmakers from both parties have long said they would support a national privacy law. GDPR is a cornerstone since 2018 in Europe to consumer privacy and regulation.

07:45
Europe is likely to continue to lead in setting precedence in privacy and security.

07:54
Free Speech and Section 230. Not unlike the origin story of World War II and Bretton Woods system that created the monetary systems we know today, the 1996 Communications Decency Act was born out of necessity to protect bookstore  owners from selling books that in the  1950s were considered indecent,

08:21
and were not protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, that protects freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act states that no provider or user of an interactive commuter service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information

08:51
provided by another information content provider, thereby exempting them from suit. As recent as May 18th, 2023, the United States Supreme Court heard arguments in two cases about content moderation by online platforms such as social media networks. In one case, Gonzalez versus Google, and a second case, Twitter versus Tamna.

09:21
with relevance for the application of Section 230. The decision has still, has not been validated. Section 230 still stands.

09:41
A recent article from the Chicago Booth Review of Summer 2023, in which they pull US economic experts  on panels, and they're from different academic institutions other than Chicago. They pulled them on three statements.  How would increasing the liability of online platforms change the internet?

10:10
The first statement, statement A, imposing stronger legal liability on online platforms for content posted by users would substantially reduce the amount of user generated content available on those platforms. Of the experts in the summer of 23 polled, 59 % agreed with this statement and 29 % were uncertain. Statement B.

10:40
Imposing stronger legal liability on online platforms for content posted by users would substantially damage those platforms advertising businesses. Again, the same economic experts in the poll agree 31 % and uncertain 60%. Statement C and third.

11:07
Imposing stronger legal liability on online platforms for content posted by users would substantially reduce the amount of misinformation and disinformation present on those platforms. The poll percentage agreed to 77 % and uncertain 13%.

11:32
Again, these statements all revolve around Section 230, which still stands. I'm going to take us back to E.B. White. This is pre-online platform era, and it's lessons from E.B. White on relationships with press and companies. E.B. White, in 1974, learned of an arrangement between a retired associate editor of the New York

12:01
Times, accepting a fee from Xerox Corporation to write an article for Esquire magazine accompanied by an Xerox ad. He took pen in hand and wrote a letter to the editor of the Ellsworth in Maine, uh describing the arrangement and sharing his disapproval of the saying. Xerox responded with the reasons for seeking this arrangement.

12:29
and asked, do you still see something sinister in the sponsoring? His response  was a long letter, which you will find in the original blog on my website, Next Act Advisors. His response finalized with, it would be hard to resist the suspicion that Esquire feels indebted to Xerox, that Mr. Salisbury  feeds indebted or feels indebted to both.

12:56
and that the ownership or sovereignty of Esquire has been nibbled all around the edges. I hope I have clarified by a little bit my feelings about the autonomy of the press and the dangers of sponsorship of articles. Thanks for giving me the chance to speak my piece. Whenever money changes hands, something goes along with it, an intangible something that varies with the circumstances. This is a reprint from the New York Times page

13:25
won June 15th, 1976 with excerpts from  a letter of E.B. White taking on Xerox, and he wins.

13:37
The blog post actually does continue with some bonus points for data nerds.  this blog is around data, data everywhere, personal and enterprise. Book of Numbers  by Joshua Cohen, published in 2015. I bought it while at the airport bookstore in San Francisco and home to Facebook, Aka Ameda, and uh many more technology companies that have our data.

14:05
I bought this thinking I would enjoy the fiction read. I was alarmed at first, and then I connected the dots of who owns and manipulates the data.

14:16
I'm citing directly from the book, page 280, if you buy the hardback. Confirmative, everyone was still thinking about advertising. Online advertising as like a phone book, as like the Deirdre Sarin. White pages in the middle, yellow pages all around based on whatever, on whoever would pay. But then to take the terms a user searched for,

14:45
and respond to them with ads, to respond to them individually, and with only the ads that pertinated alongside our free results, which would inadvertently demonstrate the supremacy of our free results, that was total moe. Moe is a character in the book. Wasted nothing, perpetual motion, reversible, leave it to Moe, a captive machine, general mechanics, to deliver such sodacity from just a billboard.

15:14
Adverse, this was what lured Carbon Capital. Page 280, again, from Book of Numbers by Joshua Cullen. If you're a founder and would like to learn how your company's policies may need to evolve  to protect privacy data in the pursuit of good corporate governance, please book time with me at Next Act Advisors. Thank you in closing off.

15:44
Brenda and McCabe.