Where will Pokémon Go with Your Personal
Information?
Pokémon Go is a game sensation, no doubt
about that. But users should worry about where their personal information is
going as well.
Willy Shih discusses what happens when technology wizardry meets
personal privacy.
Instead of taking big screens across the country by storm, this
summer’s blockbuster has people glued to much smaller ones.
Launched at the beginning of July by San Francisco-based
software development company Niantic, Inc., Pokémon Go has quickly become one
of the most popular smartphone apps of all time. Data analytics firm Similar
Web reported that in its first week alone, the app had been installed on nearly
11 percent of all Android phones in the United States, and surpassed Twitter’s
daily usage shortly thereafter.
Beyond being a viral sensation, the app’s success has striking
implications for a number of industries. Willy Shih is the Robert and Jane
Cizik Professor of Management Practice in Business Administration at Harvard
Business School and spent 28 years in industry at IBM, Digital Equipment,
Silicon Graphics, Eastman Kodak, and Thomson SA prior to coming to HBS in 2007.
A member of the School’s Technology and Operations Management unit, Shih closely
studies disruptive technology and technological strategy, and took time to
analyze the Pokémon Go phenomenon below.
Christian Camerota: What does Pokémon Go’s success mean for
augmented reality going forward? Is AR the next big thing?
Willy Shih: Microsoft Windows users in the late 80s and early
90s might remember that Microsoft came up with a Solitaire game as a way of
introducing people to how to use a mouse. I think Pokémon Go is going to have
the same effect, albeit unintended, of educating people about augmented
reality. It’s a very clever introduction to the technology and beautifully
illustrates the merging of the cyber and the physical. We’ve seen other things
work similarly before—Google Glass, and heads-up displays in aircraft and
high-end cars—but those only caught on in limited ways. Where they superimposed
information on top of what you were already seeing, Pokémon Go superimposes
geospacial information in an integrated way, allowing the game creators to put
these monsters in exact locations and in physical spots of significance. That’s
really quite different.
Q: If you were in charge, how would you monetize Pokémon Go?
Shih: With so many people looking for spots to collect these
things, the platform’s ability to pull traffic to particular locations is
innovative and completely unique, and represents a huge financial opportunity.
It was just announced, for example, that McDonald’s is going to sponsor the
game’s rollout in Japan. I imagine it could fundamentally change the face of
things like sponsorship and mobile advertising. We haven’t begun to see the
most outrageous applications of this yet.
Q: What about the data collection aspect?
Shih: One of the things they cleverly do is ask users to sign in
using their Google account (or by establishing a new account). When you use
something like Google Maps, Google keeps records and can mine that data to see
where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing, and then sell you things based on
that. Niantic or Nintendo will be able to take that a step further, not only
tracking where you’ve been but seeing how you respond to various stimuli in
going after these particular targets. They’ll have an immense pool of data that
they can mine and that’s very powerful. It’s also, for people like me, quite
scary. I installed the game because I wanted to play with it and see what it
was like, but I’ll probably uninstall it because I don’t necessarily want
people to know that much about me. That said, it’s a really clever, creative
way of compiling all that data.
Q: What’s the best thing about this from a technology
perspective?
Shih: A lot of people talk about data fusion, how to tie
together different pieces of data. What’s really impressive is how cleverly the
developers were able to tie augmented reality together with geospacial
location. It’s well-executed and a superb demonstration of what’s possible with
modern smartphones loaded with technology like GPS, compasses, accelerometers,
and orientation sensors. I would call it a tour-de-force in terms of using all
the capabilities embedded in modern smartphones and showing what’s possible
with augmented reality.
Q:What’s the worst thing?
Shih: It has a lot of potential for misuse and could cause
safety problems. It’s going to mine a load of data. The question is: do people
really want to share that much information? The bargain on the modern internet
is: “You’ll give me services in exchange for my data.” But I don’t think, in
general, people are aware of how much these internet companies know about them.
The privacy issues are the part of this that warrants the most discussion.
Q:Do Pokémon Go's developer Niantic or parent Nintendo have any
responsibility here (as the first to help this technology take off) in how they
handle the data and how they go about monetizing it? Or is it free reign and
whatever they don’t capitalize on, someone else quickly will?
Shih: I’d be more in the latter camp. I remember working for IBM
in August of 1981 when they introduced the IBM PC. IBM came up with this
principle that when customers broke the shrink wrap on a package, they’d
effectively accepted the licensing agreement. That whole concept of end-user
licensing was revolutionary because it laid the groundwork for all the online
licensing that came afterward—the greatest revolution was that no one was going
to read the terms. That’s had tremendous implications, some of which we see
here. In exchange for these cool games and services, users have to give up
their data and I’m not sure consumers always appreciate the extent to which
their data is collected and is already available for sale out on the internet.
by Christian Camerota
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/where-will-pok-mon-go-with-your-personal-information?cid=spmailing-13218037-WK%20Newsletter%207-27-2016%20(1)-July%2027,%202016
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