Selling the Cloud Sublime - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 109

social-media data are generated not by businesses but by individual users
who are linked through Facebook, Twitter, and other social-media sites,
the chapter simply assumes that all of the data generated should be fully
available to businesses seeking to turn user actions into revenue streams.
Such is, as the chapter title suggests without irony, “the wisdom of the
cloud.” As another chapter notes, “social media present new opportunities
for savvy organizations to capture 'the wisdom of the cloud' and leverage
the lood of unstructured data that is being created” (ibid., xvi).
By approaching user-generated data as freely available to businesses
to use in whatever ways generate proit, the report demonstrates the dif-
ference between promotional literature and research. As exempliied in
the WEF report, promotion afirms a position that its creators wish to
advance in order to accomplish the goal of convincing others to follow
their lead. On the other hand, research raises questions about positions
that generate thought and debate rather than simply assent. For example,
in 2013 the private tech-analysis irm Ovum reported on the results of
a survey of 11,000 people in eleven countries on corporate use of per-
sonal data. Among its many interesting indings were that 68 percent of
respondents would use “do not track” software if it were readily available
to them on a website. More troubling was the inding that only 14 percent
of respondents believed that Internet companies were honest about their
use of personal data (Gross 2013). Ovum's research demonstrated a pro-
found lack of trust in online commerce that inds no place in promotional
literature. Based on its results, the Ovum report concluded, “More and
more consumers are deciding to effectively become invisible in data terms
on the Internet. It will shake the Internet economy as more and more
users decide they don't want to be tracked” (ibid.). Facing the reality of
that decision, the report raised serious questions for its business clients:
“Unfortunately, in the gold rush that is big data, taking the supply of
little data—personal data—for granted seems to be an accident waiting
to happen” (ibid.). But that is what promotional literature like the WEF
report aims to do: take for granted pliable users who will ignore data-
protection opportunities. Genuine research does not, even if it means
facing hard questions and making dificult choices, such as developing a
business strategy that addresses the reality that, as a technical analyst for
Ovum concluded, “You are getting this squeeze between a hardening
consumer attitude and tighter regulation” (ibid.).