S1, E4: Dr. Augustine Fou explains big tech's issue with data privacy, "bad actors" in digital advertising, and best practices for medical media

Length: 26:42 Topic: Data Privacy and Medical Media Guest: Augustine Fou, PhD, Digital Ad Fraud Investigator, Marketing.Science Consulting Group Host: Jason E. Carris

Dr. Fou, formerly the Chief Digital Office at Omnicom and a recognized ad fraud expert, joins the AMM Conversation as we wrap up our exploration of data privacy and medical media. Dr. Fou is an MIT-trained scientist who has more than two decades of experience working with healthcare clients. He’s taught digital strategy at NYU and Rutgers. His clients run the gamut of marketers, publishers, and ad tech firms.

Dr. Fou said he considers 2020 a transition year for data privacy, with regulators taking notice that privacy issues should be taken more seriously. As consumers better understand the ways their data is being used and abused, he says government will move to, at least, “put guard rails around data privacy.”

Like others interviewed in this podcast, Dr. Fou is concerned about the lack of federal regulation. “Here in the U.S. we have yet to even start enforcement,” he said, adding there are a lot of ways companies can “game the system and not comply with regulations when they are passed.”

Bad actors in digital media/marketing “never follow rules anyway,” he explained, “so I don’t see any new regulations causing a decrease in fraud.”

Interestingly, the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal and the consumer backlash to the invasion in privacy was “not a lesson that (Facebook) is going to learn from because it is at odds with their business model,” he said. “If privacy legislation is at odds with business models, big tech companies likely are going to continue with their business until they get caught and get fined. … It’s going to be very hard to enforce any new regulations.”

He said the Covid-19 pandemic might provide opportunities for data companies to exploit the rules. Apple and Google teaming on a contact tracing app is “right at the cutting edge,” Dr. Fou said, “but consumers will have to decide on their own. The question remains if we trust these big companies. … Apple has a long track record of having sensitivity to consumer privacy.”

Medical media has always had a higher level of respect to physician and patient privacy, he said, but the advent of ad tech platforms brought about a number of unexpected outcomes and unintended consequences. He described a time during his digital marketing days when NPI numbers were exposed in the URL of the web page, a problem that was quickly fixed once identified.

Dr. Fou also described in detail his definitions of “good publishers” and “bad actors” in digital media, with respect to protecting the advertisers. “Good publishers go above and beyond and take proactive steps, such as not serving ads when they know a bot is on the website, or filtering for known bots coming from data centers. They protect the advertisers,” he said.

The bar should be raised in medical media. “Everyone is conscious of it and is trying to do the right thing,” he said. “But what other steps can you take? Instead of having 30 or 40 third-party trackers on your website, you might want to only have five.  

He encouraged medical media to “keep evolving with your data privacy. Be proactive, and do not wait for legislation.”

Connect with Dr. Fou: LinkedIn or Twitter @acfou

References:

• Check out Dr. Fou’s research slides and presentations.
• Read AMM’s Principles of Online Privacy statement (PDF).

Up Next: This concludes Season One of the AMM Conversation podcast. Season Two of the podcast will explore the new paradigm of medical media, in light of restrictions placed on U.S. businesses due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Expected guests include: Matt Holland (Healio Strategic Solutions), Kristin Carty and Denis Conlon (Elsevier), and Dave Emery (Kantar).

Contact us: Send questions and comments about this podcast series to [e-mail].