Privacy, confidentiality, anonymity, discretion, deceit, paranoia. Part 6

  By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative director, etc / LMMiami.com

“No privacy has been infringed in the marketing of this product.”

• Do you think consumers would care if a brand pitched its wares under this disclaimer?
• I doubt it.
• I used to have a client who wouldn’t disclose sales reports to us.
• Us being his frigging ad agency, for God’s frigging sake.
• “It is sensitive confidential information” was his pretext.
• Privacy meets corporate self-importance.
• Folly.
• Dude, you sell cheap shampoo, enough with the drama already.
• Nobody cares with the sole exception of us, your “partners”, your ad agency.
• We need sales figures to help you out.
• A YTD comparo, at the very least.
• Nevermind that his employer was a publicly traded company, one way or the other we could’ve found out about his sales figures, which by law must be disclosed anyway.
• Whatev.
• A textbook case of using confidentiality as a showy synonym of pomposity or pure paranoia.
• The number 1 condition for free market capitalism is transparency, full disclosure.
• Adam Smith’s theoretical “perfect market” is one in which all the consumers have full and accurate information about companies, products and prices, hence allowing supply and demand to do its job “perfectly”.
• Opacity throws a wrench in this essential condition of a healthy environment of free trade.
• The Silicon Valley sociopath’s mantra: fake it til you make it.
• Are you familiar with the Theranos case and its notorious swindler of a founder Elizabeth Holmes?
• Google it.
• You will regard the equivocal notion of privacy in a whole new light.

To view
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4:
Part 5: