There is a battle looming between the collection and use of big data and the “little” data mined from individual users on a regular and frequently less than transparent basis.
The one will affect the other and not necessarily favourably if a new report from Ovum’s principal analyst Mark Little is anything to go by.
Such covert data collection is increasingly unpopular – Ovum shows 68 percent of internet users will block attempts to track their usage and location.
Adverse and widespread publicity about privacy infringements and policy errors are fuelling the debate, suggests Little.
He warns the result could be “hurricane force disruptions” in the supply of personal data for big data industries.
The anticipated squeeze on personal data usage and supply resulting from consumer backlash and more stringent regulations is expected to affect targeted advertising, CRM, big data analytics and the digital economy adversely.
Big data is complex and its value dependent on aggregation, processing and integration tools which has led to the development of sophisticated and interlinked architecture which consumers have the power, albeit perhaps unwittingly, to disrupt.
If users block little data collection it will change the big data industry that will force the existing component parts of big data and the links between them to be redesigned and re-negotiated.
Collection, ingestion, aggregation, processing, analytics will be affected. Algorithms will need to be recoded to incorporate new inputs, sources and correlations.
Analytics solutions will have to be revamped to avoid becoming sub-optimal and data sources renegotiated, changing the way value is constructed within the system concludes the report.
Little suggests there is a “nascent alternative ecosystem for personal data forming that is user controlled and permission-based with the power to wrong foot the comfortable supply lines of big data”.
Given the chance, most consumers would select a “do not track” feature were it readily available to stop their data being collected – a trend increasingly supported by regulations and a group of start-ups dedicated to blocking, reputation management and personal data cloud and data resale.
Consumers may look to alternative privacy ecosystems to control, secure and benefit from their own data and marketing departments would do well to focus more on building better and deeper consumer relationships to build smarter rather than bigger profiles.
The big data gold rush, explains Little, takes personal data for granted which, he suggests, is not only arrogant but an accident waiting to happen.