All about online privacy & the Google Buzz saga

As the Google incident shows, however, media owners can easily be caught out when they try to use that data commercially. What, then, is the privacy situation in Asia?

1. Culturally, the concept of privacy is less entrenched in many Asian markets than in the West, leading to a lesser degree of concern regarding sites’ use of online data.

Accordingly, in many markets official privacy regulations are loose or non-existent.

Claus Mortensen, principal at IDC Asia-Pacific, says: “Our survey data indicates that about a third of internet users [in these markets] would be happy to share some of their usage and personal details if they were somehow compensated.”

2. The question, then, is how media owners are using the data they collect.

Personal data allows more targeted advertising, and the more data that can be used, the more targeted the advertising can be. International media owners, usually based in the US, insist they abide by Western privacy standards - for example by having clear options that consumers can control. Friendster is one such company, even though most of its business is in Asia. As a result it sells targeting based on age and other demographic data, all of it anonymised.

As Richard Dunmall, general manager of Microsoft Advertising Greater Asia-Pacific, points out, “in countries where no formal privacy regulations exist, it is at the discretion of the media owner to decide how and when to use consumer data”.

He adds that Microsoft follows a global set of principles relating to privacy and supports initiatives, which require online advertisers and sites to provide notice to consumers about the data collected about them, and to give consumers control over this.

3. Arguably, there is less stringency among some local operators, both websites and third-party firms that collect data.

As one source at a Chinese social media site comments: “In China, there has been no punitive measure or backlash about online privacy yet, so most media owners are doing the bare minimum.”

Brian Stoller, partner for invention at Mindshare Asia-Pacific, says he has seen companies in China doing cookie data collection, comprising “email addresses, locations, even users’ identities”.

One internet industry source points to China, Indonesia and Thailand as markets where websites are willing to do deals outside their official privacy policies. “What websites say on paper and what they say verbally are very different things. ”

There are sometimes limits to this. In 2008, following a public outcry, the Chinese authorities clamped down on SMS spam, a decision that had major ramifications for Focus Media, whose wireless division, reports claimed at the time, was sending out 200 million marketing messages a day.

4. These issues mean that media agencies need to decide what their privacy guidelines will be.

GroupM, says Stoller, has global guidelines that mean it will not use data that reveals too much personal information. For example, it is happy targeting 18 to 24 males on a site, rather than targeting specific individuals. “GroupM has pushed back on a lot of great opportunities due to its global policy,” he adds.

5. Is there an argument that privacy concerns are making it harder for social media sites to monetise their traffic?

Perhaps the best example is Facebook’s Beacon ad system, which used data from external sites and failed spectacularly after a consumer backlash. This, says Friendster’s head of Asia Ian Stewart, is an example of a company stepping over a “very grey line” between what a company wants to do commercially and what its consumers will tolerate.

Both Stewart and Dunmall believe that abusing consumer privacy is a risky business. Dunmall points to “the repercussions associated with the improper use of consumer data, including the loss of consumer trust”. Stewart simply adds: “No site can put commerce before privacy. They simply won’t survive.”