“I think privacy is one factor that is absolutely going to drive companies’ prospects of thriving, surviving or declining in the future,” he says. “I think consumers are pushing companies and saying ‘I want to know what you’re doing with my data … If I don’t trust you, I won’t do business with you.’”
Even the biggest tech behemoths are hearing that outcry. Mossounov points to the enormous changes at Apple, where policies have shifted drastically in the direction of privacy. Those changes, he says, are all happening as the company positions itself to do business and maintain trust among the next generation of consumers for decades to come.
Read more: Closing the critical gaps to protect personal information
Of course, not every company is responding as quickly. From where he sits, Mossounov sees plenty of companies making the most of the closing “Wild West” window of data. While the EU’s GPDR regime has been in place since 2018, American regulation is still in its nascent stages, meaning internet users and companies still have latitude to take advantage of data and content that they find online.
“A lot of companies are saying ‘I’m going to take this data, and I’m going to make money off of it.’ And I think that is a short-term successful strategy that’s going to work against these companies in the long run,” he says.
