{"id":647896,"date":"2013-03-20T17:53:34","date_gmt":"2013-03-20T21:53:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=622547"},"modified":"2013-03-20T17:53:34","modified_gmt":"2013-03-20T21:53:34","slug":"people-will-give-up-their-personal-info-if-you-give-them-a-good-reason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/647896","title":{"rendered":"People will give up their personal info if you give them a good reason"},"content":{"rendered":"

We face a constant barrage of requests for our personal information everyday, and more often than not our first concern is who has access to that information and how will it be used. At GigaOM\u2019s Structure:Data<\/a> conference on Wednesday, a panel of experts from the worlds of biology, location analytics and data science talked about how the concepts of personalization and privacy concerns don\u2019t have to be at odds with each other. People will give up their personal information if you give them something they find personally valuable, Ken Chahine of Ancestry.com, Naveen Jain of Inome and David Shim of Placed agreed.<\/p>\n

Just like people used to be afraid of browser cookies and their implications for privacy and now accept them as standard, Shim, Placed\u2019s founder and CEO, said he believes our attitudes toward our location data will undergo the same transition once people understand the inherent value of what they\u2019re getting back in exchange for what they\u2019re giving up.
\u201cRight now everyone\u2019s afraid of [sharing] location \u2026 as people start to understand the benefit of sharing this kind of data it will start to become more open,\u201d said Shim. \u201cPeople won\u2019t mind sharing data if you get something back in return. That perception will chagne over time.\u201d
Jain, founder and CEO of Inome agreed: while some mothers may object in theory to location sharing for privacy reasons, if they were given the ability to know their young child\u2019s exact location and whether they had arrived after walking to school, they may feel differently. Similarly, he noted that people will be willing to offer up even more personal information like DNA or medical histories if they know that the result is (someday) personalized medicine for people with specific genome types.<\/p>\n

Chahine, who is SVP and General Manager of Ancestry.com\u2019s DNA service, said he\u2019s seen some of that with DNA. \u201cPeople aren\u2019t concerned about giving us their DNA,\u201d he said. \u201cThey give us their DNA, we give them their result \u2014 and you won\u2019t be surprised to learn \u2014 we don\u2019t give them a generic result.\u201d In other words, individuals get something out of it, the value of which is highest to them: who else they\u2019re related to. That \u201cvalue exchange\u201d is crucial and what makes Ancestry.com customers comfortable handing over such personal information. And, he said, they\u2019ll continue to do so \u201cas long as we strike the right balance between privacy and personalization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Check out the rest of our Structure:Data 2013 live coverage here, and a video embed of the session follows below:<\/p>\n