From data hoarding to data sharing

Abstract

Sometimes assumptions run so deep that they are rarely even discussed, never mind questioned or challenged. Direct marketing has one such assumption: that it is the organization alone that collects, analyses and uses customer data. The organization is the data manager; the customer is the subject and target of data-driven activities. Now, however, the UK Government initiative midata soon to be backed by European law is encouraging companies to release the data they hold on customers back to the customer, thereby empowering them as managers of their own data. Midata heralds a new era of digital data sharing between individuals and their suppliers. By helping consumers manage and control their own data, direct marketers dream of helpful, useful, timely, relevant communications may be realized via a route early pioneers of the discipline never conceived of. © 2012 Macmillan Publishers LTD.