The creepiness factor

I think that the creepiness factor is something that many of the most promising startups are going to have to content with over the next year and a half, as their services become more and more mainstream, and data collection and analysis techniques get more and more sophisticated.

Facebook is often at the forefront of the privacy conversation, so I think it makes sense to use them as an example.

Facebook has extended data tendrils throughout the web, including like and share buttons and widgets that get used daily on most major news sites. Today, while reading a story on GigaOm, they (via Facebook) were able to tell me that my wife had shared another GigaOm story a few weeks earlier:

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Through these technologies and the relationships that I’ve declared on Facebook, GigaOm can customize my content experience through the magical filter of my friends’ and relatives tastes.

In each individual stage of the process involved in providing this recommendation, nothing is creepy. After all, I’m reading a story on this site, and I’ve logged in, and they know who I am. And on Facebook I’ve voluntarily mapped out my relationships.

And the end result doesn’t seem creepy at all, especially to the creators of the software — (maybe) until you experience it. There’s a very powerful world of both marketing and customer value to be unlocked in this data, but I am more and more convinced that it will not be an easy sell for the average consumer, especially one who is at all concerned about privacy.