How to Reach Customers Online Without Being a Douchebag

I set out as a full-time digital marketing consultant about 6 months ago, and I had to face the fact that a lot of internet marketing is horrible. Citizens of the web are bombarded with belly fat ads, Facebook sold their data to shady political manipulators and their...
Customers’ Privacy is Worth the Cost of Regulation

Customers’ Privacy is Worth the Cost of Regulation

Doing the right thing after doing the wrong thing for a long time can be difficult and costly. This morning I read a round up on the first year of GDPR and a short article about Senator Feinstein’s bill to protect voters from digital manipulation ala Cambridge...
Facebook’s Mind Games

Facebook’s Mind Games

You have to admire their audacity. After a receiving a $5B fine for misleading consumers on data collection and running into regulatory scrutiny on Libra, their cryptocurrency project, it has come out that Facebook has been funding research on machines that read...
Facebook & the FTC

Facebook & the FTC

The FTC recently announced a record fine to Facebook, and the press has been critical that it doesn’t require much action from Facebook in reforming its business practices. Another is that the fine was too small This is an example from Bloomberg. I think the FTC did...
Privacy is a Luxury Good

Privacy is a Luxury Good

Maybe it shouldn’t be. But it is. It’s become increasingly clear to me in my perusal of the tech media and my experience working in Digital Marketing that privacy has become a luxury good. Should it be that way? No. I think there should be some enforceable rights...
BUY NOW: That Thing You Were Just Thinking About

BUY NOW: That Thing You Were Just Thinking About

A Guide to Online Advertising Data and Privacy I’ve worked in Online Advertising for my whole career, and after leaving the gentle embrace of a tech giant, I’m reassessing the industry as an outsider. Especially when it comes to data privacy & humane tech. That’s...
Are You On the Web or In The Web

Are You On the Web or In The Web

This post is about getting on the web without being trapped in the web If you are on the web, you are moving cheerfully and purposefully along its strands, accomplishing the tasks that you set out to do. Learning and enriching your life through the endless worlds of...
Chris Hughs vs. Facebook

Chris Hughs vs. Facebook

(Originally Published May 9, 2019) Facebook co-founder Chris Hughs has penned a very long editorial calling for the break up of Facebook into its constituent parts of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. I personally doubt if breaking up Facebook will solve many of the...
Pichai’s Privacy Pitch

Pichai’s Privacy Pitch

(Originally published May 8, 2019) Yesterday evening, Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote an op-ed in the New York Times re-affirming Google’s commitment to privacy. Personally, I’d like to see Google go a little farther in their commitment to privacy, but this is a good...