(Original Caption) Built for the Office of Strategic Services, this tiny “MB” camera – no bigger than its namesake, a matchbox – could easily be hidden in a man’s hand and used to capture a photograph under the cloak of such a simple gesture as lighting a cigarette or reading. Eastman Kodak reveals that it designed and built 1,000 of these cameras for use by OSS agents and underground forces during World War II.
Bettmann Archive
The careful study of customers is as old as the business itself. Consumers would be miserable without a strong business interest in who they are.
If they are skeptical, they need only go shopping in Havana or Pyongyang. In businesses staffed by people who have no incentive to know and expect customer needs, the shelves are bare. Worse, what’s on the shelves has nothing to do with what customers want.
In short, customers improve when businesses “spy” on them. The intent is not malicious, but about improving the customer experience while making it more likely that what the customer wants will be available when they need it.
It is important, the ability of businesses to predict and lead customer needs are growing day by day. The latter is made evident by the valuations investors make of technology companies relative to traditional media of the print variety. With the latter, the ad was an educated guess, but not much more. Not so with modern technology.
The Internet and its use enables businesses to know exactly what each user is interested in, what turns that user off, and everything in between. The result is a vastly improved customer experience tailored to individuals that improves day by day. Call time spent browsing and shopping online, as opposed to a day of shopping in Havana or Pyongyang.
Unfortunately, tech companies’ constant and laudable efforts to improve the customer experience have drawn the attention of government officials who are willing to use a good thing in a dangerous way. A federal government that arguably investigates individuals too much, and does so covertly too often, naturally wants to profit from the knowledge that tech companies have about their customers. To which tech companies reasonably say no thanks.
Clients are hard won, and must be taken care of. Every business owner of any size knows this well.
This is why passing the NDO Fairness Act is so important. Bipartisan legislation spearheaded in the Senate by Mike Lee (R-UT) and Chris Coons (D-DE), limits the federal government’s ability to use “gag orders” to compel information about individuals from technology companies. In other words, governments will face a higher burden of proof before securing information, and that burden of proof will apply similarly to officials who want to search individuals without disclosing to those being investigated that they are doing just that.
In addition to raising the bar for federal investigations without disclosure, the law would place stricter time limits on “gag orders.” The government should seek and be granted extensions of the same gag orders.
From what you’ve read, there is an ongoing debate between parents and between parents about whether children need “boundaries.” There is no discussion with governments. They need them. History is clear that their lack leads to politicized actions that harm citizens more broadly.
Which brings us back to tech companies. The NDO Fairness Act should be passed precisely because they have learned how to know and anticipate customer needs very expertly, but also very honorably. Knowing their customers well is once again improving the experience for those customers.
Just the same, it is important not to allow government to turn what is good into a source of federal surveillance and increasingly politicized surveillance. The latter is not only dangerous, it is also wrong to use private business to improve the government’s ability to do harm to the people. The NDO Fairness Act cannot be passed into law fast enough.
