Another day, another giant privacy fine: the Federal Trade Commission announced that Equifax will pay at least $575 million for its 2017 data breach affecting 147 million people. Seems like a lot until you calculate it’s less than $4 per name. We also hear rumors of a Google settlement over YouTube’s handling of children’s data but no word on the size of the fine.
Stories about the dreadful state of data security are so common that I rarely share them. But this survey from security company CyberArk was especially shocking: 41% of respondents said their company would rather pay fines than change security policies after a successful cyber attack. Much more here about how little most organizations do to protect their data.
Item 3: Last week’s Prime Day promotions from Amazon included a $10 credit to customers who would install a comparison shopping tool that tracks their visits to competitive sites and tries to underbid them. No word on response. Given how much data people give away for free, $10 is both exceptionally generous and insultingly low.
Twilio is adding ‘contextual awareness’ to its Segment CDP, which in plainer English means data stored in Segment will be available when creating event-triggered, real-time messages. This and a redesigned journey architecture are part of Twilio’s “next generation” customer engagement platform, which also includes natural voice AI agents, voice and text analytics, and RCS and WhatsApp messaging. Twilio separately announced a multi-year partnership with Microsoft to speed the adoption of conversational AI for customer engagement.