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"It’s not enough to know your customers. You also have to like them."
SURFIN' SAFARI Web visitors may be more likely to stumble on a site by sheer
accident than to have been driven there by an ad, according to a new
study commissioned by marketing and technology consultants IMT Strategies.
While people reported that search engines and word of mouth were the most
frequent ways they found new Web sites, random surfing wasn’t far behind.
Web banners, television, radio, and newspapers were at the bottom of the list.
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LAUNCH Launching a start-up sounds exciting. And it is. Except when it’s complicated. Which it is. Always. Then, a launch gets downright ugly. Here is how a friend of ours describes the life of a start-up: He says he has six figures in cash from initial investors, but he is spending 18 hours a day writing code. He realizes he has no time to drive around picking up the bare essentials for his team: burritos, caffeinated beverages, phone equipment, diesel generators, paper clips, motherboards, more burritos, more caffeinated beverages. After some deliberation, he sends a friend instead. But there’s a rub. The chief executive can’t send someone with a corporate credit card because he hasn’t had time to apply for one. No business checks have been printed because the company hasn’t rented permanent space yet. Personal checks and credit cards are out, too. The CEO would need to show up in person. So, he is down to cash. But wait. When he spares some precious moments and trundles down to the bank to extract 30 crisp $100 bills, he finds that the bank has lost his signature card. "I have no way to prove that I’m me," he says. He can’t cash a check on his personal account. He says this kind of thing happens to him 100 times a day. He just doesn’t
have the time to tell us the rest of his stories. ALL IN A DAY'S WORK Proof that Internet fever has reached epidemic proportions: The scene
is a Brooklyn, N.Y. barbershop, a real neighborhood joint. It is two days
before an endlessly hyped playoff game. What are folks talking about?
Amazon.com’s layoffs—the first ones ever. The barbers, it seems,
have been bitten by the day-trading bug. Between haircuts they run into
the next room, checking stock prices and making trades.
MANY UNHAPPY RETURNS Remember that quick and easy tax site you used to fill out your return?
Well, that site may not protect your privacy very thoroughly, according to a study
by enonymous.com. The privacy watchdog says only half of tax-related sites post a
privacy policy. Those with a policy generally say they won't share or sell user
data, but almost none promise not to contact users without their consent.
THE URGE TO MERGE What would come of a merger between Self and Worth magazines? Self Worth, of course, according to one New Yorker cartoon. Fortune and Hunting could morph into Fortune Hunting. The name game can be played with any corporate pairing, often with amusing results. We were tickled by these witty groupings in an e-mail making the rounds:
JUST BETWEEN US Personal privacy is the corporate equivalent of a minefield. The path to collecting information about customers may seem clear, but the slightest misstep can trigger a nasty explosion. It may be smart business to use customers’ purchase histories and preferences to target them with certain products or to set different prices for different customers. The thing is: The rules on how customer information can be used aren’t yet clear. And being too aggressive—whatever that means, exactly—could easily spur a nasty lawsuit or, worse yet, an excoriation in the national press. Context turned to Simson Garfinkel, author of Database Nation: The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century, for advice on how to think about the commercially important, but emotionally charged, issue of privacy. CONTEXT: What should companies do to respect consumers’ privacy? SIMSON GARFINKEL: Companies should argue for national standards on how personal information should be treated. This will give consumers a reasonable expectation about what’s being done with their personal information. For example, if data about you are saved in some computer, you should have a right to see them. You should be able to expect that the information will be held in a secure fashion. You should have the right to have incorrect information corrected. CONTEXT: What kinds of national standards should be developed? GARFINKEL: A national data-protection act should be passed. A data-protection commission, similar to the Food and Drug Administration, should also be instituted. Right now, Congress is considering legislation on evolving technology, and it can’t keep up with the changes. A new agency could keep on top of new developments and issues. CONTEXT: What do you think about the idea that people should own the rights to their personal information? GARFINKEL: That is a very dangerous strategy, because what is owned can be bought and sold. With a simple click of an "I accept" button, people could very quickly find that they had transferred their data ownership over to corporations. Then all the law that has been created to protect privacy would work against them because the corporations would have ownership. Using inalienable rights to protect privacy is far better. That way, protection of privacy is a personal attribute, like a hand or foot. CONTEXT: What is the greatest privacy challenge that companies will face in the coming years? GARFINKEL: Without legislation, there will be more disastrous privacy snafus. They will cause a backlash against corporations collecting personal information and will hurt e-commerce in general. We’re already seeing a backlash against the U.S. Census because of privacy and security concerns. It is just not in the interest of commerce for any business to treat personal information so callously that all businesses get a bad name. What DoubleClick did [it planned to match information about Internet surfers’ viewing habits with their names and addresses] made everybody look bad. Some people say, "I don’t believe there should be privacy legislation. There should be volunteer practices. The market will decide." What the market might decide is that everybody loses because businesses can’t be trusted with personal information. [For another viewpoint on this topic, see The Great Lie.]
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Fairchild Electronics and Honeywell Computers would become Fairwell Honeychild.