Last week, the Connecticut Attorney General released the following report: Privacy enforcement An update that will make your stomach hurt.
A consumer sent a complaint to the AG’s office after receiving an advertisement for cremation services in the mail after he had just finished chemotherapy. Apparently, the person was part of a list sold by a data broker to a cremation company. You can guess how the marketing logic flowed from there. “Inference: Terminal illness?” “Interest: Possible purchase – burial/cremation.”
Then came the following news Publicis $350 million settlement Purdue Pharma’s longtime advertising agency was recognized for its role in marketing opioids to physicians.
Publicis issued a statement condemning any wrongdoing. reassure Shareholders revealed that the Rosetta division responsible for the reprehensible campaign in question had long been shut down. The Publicis statement further states: “To date, its role has been limited to performing many of the standard advertising services that agencies provide to their customers for products prescribed to patients.”
That’s interesting. I didn’t know it was included in the “Standard Advertising Service” Record and analyze intimate conversations between patients and doctors Pharmaceutical companies tell doctorsbe proactive “Patient backlash against opioids” and patient acquisitionI am comfortable taking OxyContin.Containing increasingly higher doses. ”
But at least Publicis stopped these invasive and deceptive practices. right?
mistaken. Publicis does not recognize his Verilogue, the division that runs “”, at all.Unique examination room dialogue researchEfforts to record conversations between doctors and patients are still active.
In fact, in 2023, Verilogue will become part of a new Publicis Health division called Insagic, which will reportedly combine Verilogue’s capabilities with those of its data broker division, Epsilon.a press release Announcing the launch of Insagic, the company touts that its dataset includes “over 1.6 million minutes of exclusive real-world doctor-patient interactions.”
We’ve already seen Publicis Health’s willingness to collect this intimate data in order to gain insights that can help drug manufacturers prescribe higher doses of potentially harmful drugs. What else could go wrong?
This data does not suggest that you can only be used for any illegal purpose; Also, I am not objecting to such health data. did it Used in advertising to bring positive results.
I challenge the false belief that the advertising industry has no interest in exercising the necessary restraint to not misuse this sensitive data in ways that cause harm. This is not the time to make money.
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I’d like to calculate the $350 million in profits and settlements that Publicis earned through its work at Purdue. You can also ignore the indirect costs of reputational damage and the higher liability limits that smart clients demand when using data solutions. Ah, that’s off topic.
After news of the Publicis settlement broke, a brave woman named Emily Deschamps, an employee of the Publicis division Performics, said: Post on LinkedInshared a story about his parents who tragically died of an opioid overdose before graduating from college.
Deschamps suggested that given how widespread the opioid crisis is, she is likely not the only Publicis employee who has lost a loved one to addiction. She went on to ask: “After this fine, what will the company do for individuals like me?” […] What do you say to employees like me? ”
As Emily’s story poignantly illustrates, there are real harms that result from the industry’s ethical failures.like back then Publicis’ Epsilon and WPP’s KBM Group They sold data that enabled elder fraud. Just like what happens as a result of IPG Acxiom sells data to credit rating agencies.
Considering how often this data is wrong, the scope of the damage only grows. scholar and insider similar. (For example, I have no children and am married, but according to a data broker access request I recently submitted, I am a single mother of two children.) This means that the “accurate” data collected invasively is It’s not just the risk of leaks. In addition to being exploited, incorrect assumptions and faulty reasoning can also be exploited in ways that are virtually undetectable and often uncurable.
For example, consider this heartbreaking incident. comment The following was submitted to the Federal Trade Commission in response to Commerce Oversight’s proposed rulemaking.
“When I miscarried in 2016, I was bombarded with ads for infant products for months as I prepared for my baby right up until the day she died. […] Everywhere I looked I was reminded of a sense of loss. ” She ends by lamenting her own powerlessness in avoiding these disastrous targeted ads and the “advertiser surveillance” that makes them possible.
Are brands paying for this? Are these unethically extracted, low-quality data and substandard assumptions worth the human cost?
These are speculations and assumptions that we have no right to make and that affect the future, which we have no right to limit. These are falsehoods that we have no right to spread. they are real parents. real people. real life. real death.
So, no, I’m not impressed with the claim that Publicis’ work is “legal.”
Frankly, if it were legal to manipulate patients for advertising or record doctor-patient conversations, it would be an indictment of the American legal system’s failure to protect its citizens from harm. I will do it. If the loopholes are this big, and the new law is so badly diluted and distorted by industry lobbyists on its way to being signed, then the law itself is unfair and deceptive.
We should not talk about the provisions of the law on this issue.
We should be talking about Emily and how no one should lose their parents because of our industry’s broken moral compass. We should be talking about ensuring that people receiving treatment for serious illnesses do not receive targeted ads based on inferences about impending death.
We have to improve more. Holding company. Advertiser. industry. meeting. All of us.
A final thought for brands: If your agency is willing to misuse data in ways that can harm people, it’s not going to do the same to your data and budget. If you think so, I have a bridge to sell you.
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