Confronting the Practice of Adjunct Surveillance

On this special episode of The Futurum Tech Podcast - Interview Series host Daniel Newman welcomes Raju Vegesna, Chief Evangelist at Zoho to discuss data privacy and security including examining Zoho's new bold stance on privacy. In the last few years, it seems like the respect of privacy has declined. Ad networks collect massive amounts of information about consumers, giving seemingly endless targeting options to companies, but there is no control given to the user about what information is collected — and that needs to change.

 

Raju and I explored how companies use adjunct surveillance to make money off of customers. Data is being collected about us, from our shopping habits to our browsing history, and a lot of it is being done without our knowledge. While it's more common in the consumer world, it's also happening in the B2B world too. Companies embed tracking or analytics code to monitor what is being done on their sites, but this information collected by third parties is then sold to other companies. Zoho said enough with this practice.

 

Zoho's bold stance on privacy. Raju shared that Zoho no longer embeds any tracking or analytics software from third parties on its websites or applications. Everything that is embedded is a Zoho product with an easy to understand explanation of what data is being collected. Zoho's customer's can enable tracking from other parties, but it is not something that Zoho does which is a compromise they are willing to make.

 

The privacy pendulum is swinging back toward permissions. We discussed the potential future in this area. I've been a purveyor of privacy for many years and hope that more companies follow Zoho's lead. Raju believes that more companies will. He shared that recently The New York Times eliminated a lot of the trackers on their website which is hopefully generating some awareness around these tracking practices. Ultimately it would be great if users get full control over what data is being collected and shared.

 

What success will look like. Lastly, Raju shared what the payoff will look like from this stance on privacy — and he doesn't mean in financial terms. Zoho is lucky since it is a private company, they are able to create and take this stance. It is the right thing to do and Raju shared that they have the freedom to take this risk. Raju posed the question, "what's the point of being financially profitable if you're morally bankrupt." For the company, it really only matters if they are doing the right thing.

 

I recently explored Zoho's new stance on privacy and adjunct surveillance. Be sure to check out the article to learn how they are looking to set themselves apart from other B2B vendors. If you'd like more information about Zoho and their offerings you can visit their website.

 

Disclaimer: This show is for information and entertainment purposes only. While we will discuss publicly traded companies on this show, the contents of this show should not be taken as investment advice.