My grandfather was an ad guy. He ran brands and divisions in the heyday of Procter & Gamble.

I remember watching golf with him one day late in his life; the sound muted. When the ads rolled through- he paused to critique one of them. Since this was quite out of character for him, I asked why. He shared that back in the early days of TV, the mark of a good advertisement was if you (the consumer) knew what was being sold and why it mattered to you without hearing the voiceover (sound). 

Last week, Apple's CEO addressed the Council of Europe for International Data Protection Day (yes, that’s a thing). In his speech, he reminded us that “Technology does not need vast troves of personal data stitched together across dozens of websites & apps in order to succeed. Advertising existed and thrived for decades without it”.

I don’t agree with all the perspectives of the Inc. Magazine write-up (like that "the business philosophies of Facebook and Apple are diametrically opposed"), but I do like a hard-driving case for data privacy being a consumer CHOICE.

In an excerpt from Mr. Cook’s speech, he argues that the great cost to consumers and the end result of tech giants such as Facebook endlessly collecting and selling our data is “that you are no longer the customer; you are the product."

There is an increasing push to expand data privacy protections, to curtail and limit what can be posted online without consequence, and growing exploration of “ethical technology”.

If we've learned nothing else in the past couple years, it should be as Mr. Cook said in Brussels: “If a business is built on misleading users on data exploitation, on choices that are no choices at all, then it does not deserve our praise. It deserves reform.”

My grandfather knew a thing or two. Sometimes we must return to the basics. Respect for others and ethical behavior is the foundation of a working society. We can- and must do better. Starting now.

#leadership #values #growth #ethics #technology #dataprivacy #dobetter