A White House statement released on Wednesday revealed that the Privacy Bill of Rights will provide consumers with the following rights:

·         Individual Control:  Consumers have a right to exercise control over what personal data organizations collect from them and how they use it.

·         Transparency: Consumers have a right to easily understandable information about privacy and security practices.

·         Respect for Context: Consumers have a right to expect that organizations will collect, use, and disclose personal data in ways that are consistent with the context in which consumers provide the data.

·         Security: Consumers have a right to secure and responsible handling of personal data.

·         Access and Accuracy: Consumers have a right to access and correct personal data in usable formats, in a manner that is appropriate to the sensitivity of the data and the risk of adverse consequences to consumers if the data are inaccurate.

·         Focused Collection: Consumers have a right to reasonable limits on the personal data that companies collect and retain.

·         Accountability: Consumers have a right to have personal data handled by companies with appropriate measures in place to assure they adhere to the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights.

The White House also announced in its statement that the companies responsible for the delivery of nearly 90% of online behavioral advertisements have agreed to honor consumers’ privacy choices made via Do Not Track technology on web browsers. The companies that make this commitment to Do Not Track technology will be subject to enforcement by the Federal Trade Commission.   

We will post another blog entry following the formal unveiling of the report, which will contain more details on its contents.

Yesterday we published an updated "Cross Check" marketplace analysis, which identifies potential problems and opportunities for all of the WCXM vendors we evaluate. The two charts below are republished from that briefing.

Rise of the Planet of the Platforms

We've found it useful to organize vendors primarily according to complexity and power. Specifically, we make a distinction between "platforms" and "products." See this advisory briefing for more background on this division.

If there is one overall trend we see right now, it's the growing "platformization" of WCXM systems. Some organic customers forces are driving this, including greater centralization of (more CMS-savvy) web teams, along with greater website complexity more generally. But vendors, too, are pushing harder to go upmarket, filling a vacuum left by the many fading players in this space. (For a deeper critique of each major vendor, consult the individual product chapters in our full WCXM evaluation research.)

About Cross Checks

These charts represent four key dimensions -- Vendor Size, Focus on WCXM, Vendor Evolution, and Product Development -- that supplement functional and cost analyses in any major procurement decision. In committing to a purchase, you are also committing to a short-term implementation — and a long-term relationship. There are always risks in both timeframes.

As always there's no "right" or "magic" or "leader" location. Buyers with strong internal IT processes and a predilection for early adoption may favor a vendor undertaking fundamental changes, on the grounds that they may be able to influence roadmaps and new technology, as well as "leapfrog" competitors that are stuck with older tools and approaches. Other customers may prefer a WCM supplier evolving at a more moderate pace, while still others prefer a very conservative approach.

Each of you will rate the importance of these dimensions differently and we encourage you to make use of these visualizations in the broader context of other considerations in your selection process.

Platform-oriented WCXM Vendors

Fig 1. RSG Cross-Check for Platform-oriented WCXM Vendors
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Product-oriented WCM Vendors

Fig 2. RSG Cross-Check for Product-oriented WCXM Vendors
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To understand why we placed particular vendors in specific places on the chart, Web CMS research subscribers can download our 8-page background briefing.

"So, Uncle Matt, what do you remember most about 2012? Was it the London Olympics?"

"Well my impertinent nephew, 2012 was in fact the year we learned about 'Big Data'."

" 'Big' Data? Wasn't there much data around before 2012?"

"Oh there was loads of it. It was just until then, we'd not been told to notice it. Not until an unholy alliance of analysts and software and storage companies like IBM and EMC began to point out that it was really, exciting. And coincidentally enough, it turns out they had all sorts of solutions to manage all this data."

"Wow that was lucky. So, did they work ?"

"No of course not. But then again they were the same tools we'd been using for ages, and they'd never worked then either."

This imagined interchange echoes some of the conversations we've been having within RSG about the Enterprise Search market. For much like "Big Data," Enterprise Search has been around a long while, but has never really fulfilled its promise. And Enterprise Search -- just like Big Data -- is due for a resurgence in the market, to get cast as something new and wonderful, disregarding the fact that it's not new and didn't work the first time around.

Consider the following:

• The term "Search" itself provides a negative connotation as it tells you there is a problem, that stuff has been lost. Just as Big Data accurately describes a lot of "stuff" --  much of which we have no idea how it got there, and the bulk of which is likely junk.
   
• A history of overpromising that Search will magically fix everything, when it patently won't. Just as slicing and dicing of data at ever more granular points will somehow give our businesses ever more accurate insights.
   
• The myth that search engines can extract gold from junk has long since been debunked, just as anyone who has ever tried running data warehouses full of dirty data can attest: it just doesn't work.
• Bundled search with business applications is "good enough" for most people (particularly as expectations are low), as is most basic BI (Business Intelligence) reporting more than enough for most business folk.
   
• Web searching is a totally different challenge to enterprise searching, but few seem to understand that differentiation. Just as mining big data is a totally different paradigm from analyzing a specific local dataset.

From recent conversations with subscription customers, it's clear that the underlying business problems that led to so many big search projects are still there. Burned by their previous experiences with big search projects, however, organizations are learning to bite off ever smaller chunks of these issues. If anything the Enterprise Search market has stalled or even gone backwards these last few years.

Fortunately the crazy hype around Big Data has yet to infect the Enterprise Search market, but following Oracle's acquisition of Endeca and HP's crazy year in which they acquired Autonomy, there is undoubtedly a vacuum in the heart of the Enterprise Search market ready to be filled.

But is it going to be yet more hype and unfulfilled promises that flood into that gap, or will we move on and finally start to deliver on the promise?  What do you think?

The FTC evaluated the types of apps offered to children, the disclosures provided to users in the app stores and on the app developers' websites, interactive features such as connectivity with social media, and the ratings and parental controls offered for the apps.  FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz stated that "right now, it is almost impossible to figure out which apps collect what data and what they do with it," and said the children's app ecosystem must "wake up" and provide "easily accessible, basic information, so that parents can make informed decisions about the apps their kids use."

To conduct its survey, the FTC searched the Apple and Android app stores using the word "kids" and examined the app store promotion pages of 200 apps (randomly selected from the first 480 search results) from each app store.  The FTC also reviewed the information available on the first page, or "landing" page, of the associated app developers' websites.  The FTC did not download any of the apps surveyed, explaining in the report that its focus was on the information that a parent could easily access prior to downloading (and possibly being charged for) an app.  The FTC also apparently did not examine the privacy policies or terms of use that were available through links on the app developers' websites (noting that "consumers are unlikely to read disclosures buried in privacy policies or 'terms of service' agreements because they are not easily accessible and are invariably long, legalistic, and difficult to understand"). 

According to the report, while FTC staff "encountered a diverse pool of apps for kids created by hundreds of different developers, staff found little, if any information, information in the app marketplaces about the data collection and sharing practices of these apps."  In addition, of the 400 app promotion pages examined by the FTC, only two (0.5%) linked to a developer landing page that disclosed information about data collection and sharing on the landing page itself. 

The report calls upon all members of the "kids app ecosystem" – the stores, developers and third parties providing services – to play an active role in providing key information to parents.  The report recommends that:

• App developers should provide data practices information in simple and short disclosures. They also should disclose whether the app connects with social media and whether it contains ads. Third parties that collect data also should disclose their privacy practices.  
   
• App stores, "as gatekeepers of the app marketplaces," also should take responsibility for ensuring that parents have basic information. The stores should be able to provide a way for developers to provide information about their data collection and sharing practices (such as a designated space for developers to disclose this information and standardized icons to signal certain features, such as social network connectivity). 

The report warns of future enforcement action, noting that the FTC will conduct an additional review over the next six months to identify potential violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act ("COPPA") and determine whether enforcement is appropriate.  According to the FTC, the report, along with agency's settlement last year with a mobile app developer for alleged COPPA violations and its recent proposal to amend the COPPA Rule, is a "warning call" to industry that it must do more to provide parents with information about the mobile apps their children use.

The FTC report can be expected to increase scrutiny of mobile app privacy issues, which were in the spotlight in recent days following news that the popular social network app Path (and other iOS apps) would upload users' entire contact lists to the developer's servers without permission.