Learning to Trust Through Privacy with The @ Company

We’re living through the middle of a struggle between sharing our personal information with companies and organizations and the desire to retain some level of privacy. Everything from renting an apartment to browsing social media asks us to give up more and more of our personal information. So what is the answer to this? Some companies have proven they can’t be trusted with our information. How do we help companies and organizations regain our trust? The answer is by being more private. On this episode of the Leading With Nice Interview Series, we speak with Barbara Tallent and Jory Des Jardins from The @ Company about a novel approach to help companies and individuals build trust by maintaining privacy.

Transcript

Jory Des Jardins:
I think we like getting advertisements and offers for things that we actually want to understand and know more about. What I didn't want were the ads that came afterwards, because I had somehow triggered through my data, that's the push model of marketing. We're talking about the pull model. Based on what you've said, you wanted to understand and know more about for a period of time.

Mathieu Yuill:
Hey, there, welcome to the Leading With Nice interview series. My name is Mathieu Yuill, and we want to help you inspire others, build loyalty and get results. Now today I'm super excited to welcome Barbara Tallent And Jory Des Jardins onto the podcast, and they are with The @ Company. And I will let them explain what they do and what they're trying to do, but it's all centered around privacy and the reason why when this email came across my desk I jumped on it right away. As you can imagine, you got lots of emails about lots of people that can be on a podcast, but they're not always that exciting.

Mathieu Yuill:
But this one was because at Leading With Nice, one of the core tenets of our values is honesty, trust, gratitude. And The @ Company is concerned about those things as well, but through the lens of privacy. And today at your place of employment, you have some level of privacy that you're experiencing, so this is around you. And also, when you're at home or doing your own personal things, you're shopping online, you're sharing your data and your information, it's just a thing. So they're doing something very cool in this space, and I wanted to talk to them about it because I think there's real leadership happening from The @ Company. So Barbara, Jory, welcome to the show.

Barbara Tallent:
Thank you.

Jory Des Jardins:
Thanks, Mathieu.

Mathieu Yuill:
Privacy is top of mind, unlike we've seen before, but we know that companies have been keeping track of us for decades, like thinking of loyalty reward cards, credit cards, for sure. So why now has this become a hot topic?

Barbara Tallent:
I think there's a number of things, but if anybody saw The Social Dilemma, that Netflix docudrama, it really shed light on how that information is being used. We don't mind giving up that information, but it showed how that information is being used to manipulate you online and get you to do things that you may not otherwise do, stay on social sites much stronger than you ever wanted to. So I think that is part of it. I think people just didn't realize how much they were being manipulated by the data they were giving up. Jory, who you want to add to that?

Jory Des Jardins:
Yeah. Well, I completely agree with that. I think The Social Dilemma was a game changer for so many people on the consumer side who were using the platforms, but weren't as grounded in the technology and what was happening with their data. But I also think there's a huge wind shift in attitude about privacy. So I would say even as little as a few years ago, we look at the last election cycle. Privacy was a nice-to-have, but it wasn't a must-have. This election cycle, I think the public was much more aware of some of the manipulations that can happen and they started to care more about what was happening with their data, how their data was being used for misinformation, and they started to vote with their feet.

Jory Des Jardins:
They moved towards other applications that they never thought to even consider before all of this talk about other platforms, no censorship, no surveillance. I don't even know if people really understood what surveillance was from a technical standpoint. I think we think of surveillance as, "Oh, there's someone listening in on my call," and tech companies can tell you until the day is long that they're not surveilling your calls. But, the fact that they had any access at all to the information going from one point to another is a form of surveillance. And the public just became more aware of what that actually meant.

Mathieu Yuill:
If you haven't seen The Social Dilemma, well, first of all, what have you been doing? It's on Netflix, and I thought we'd all watched the entire library by now, but definitely check it out because it is eye-opening and so well produced. Great storytelling. As we prepared for this conversation, I really dug into some hardcore data because I wanted to make sure that we weren't just fearmongering or Chicken Littling here where the sky is falling, and to see, is this actually happening? So Deloitte released some research in the fall of 2020, and it said that 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned before checkout, and they pointed toward consumers' hesitation of sharing their information with just one more entity. I think the next logical step is, people will begin to not just abandon their cart, but they'll say, "Hm, how can I actually clean or kind of get my data back?" Do you see this progression as well? Or do you see it a different thing happening? I'd love to know.

Barbara Tallent:
Oh, I think definitely. It turns out that our data is at hundreds, if not a thousand sites on the web, and you just don't think about it. And I think people are starting to think about it now. I'm thinking, "Who am I giving this data to? And why do they need all this information?" And we are seeing some great companies emerge in the space that help you take your data back because, at least in California, under the CCPA, you can actually go out and ask companies to remove your data. And I know both Canada and the United States are working on legislation in that area as well. So I think we'll soon see that from everybody. And one of the companies in that space is mine, mine.com. At saymine.com rather. And they help you go out and find all your data and get it back.

Mathieu Yuill:
People are probably thinking right now of the Instagrams, the Facebooks, the WhatsApps of the world, but there's thousands of companies. And an interesting thing to do is when you go and look in your browser, at your cookies or the data that's been stored, it's crazy, and that's just a piece of it. One of the trends we saw around this were actually online private social clubs, and they are becoming more and more popular. Now, before the events in the Washington Capitol, I would have said it, Parlor is a great example of this and it's going to grow and look for it to continue, but it's had its troubles after that. But I'm curious, what's the difference between a platform like a Facebook and a platform like Parlor? What's the difference? What was that trend looking like?

Jory Des Jardins:
Well, politics aside, and Parlor has seemingly become a platform for the far-right in the US, but that said, I think that what it brought to the table and what was appealing to anyone who was a privacy advocate, is that it had validated your identity. And I think that the theory behind Parlor is that if you can prove who you are, you don't need to be surveilled. It's up to the people that you're engaging with to decide if they want to hear what you're saying. That's free speech. And I think that this is, regardless of what kind of content was on Parlor, I do think that the next generation of platforms are going to have a very similar agreement with the end user, which is if you can validate who you are, you can use this however you choose to.

Jory Des Jardins:
You can also take your data back when you're done. You can also decide, "I don't want to engage with this person," and decide to move off of the platform. So it's just giving the end user more control over how they're using the platform, unlike now where I think you have platforms that are trying to make those decisions for you. And there's been a lot of pressure on Facebook to do that, for example, but many people feel that it's not a choice that should be made on their behalf.

Mathieu Yuill:
I think what Parlor demonstrated, and again, nothing to do with the politics or who was using it, but it was definitely a platform that, "Here's a place where you can come and we don't do the same sort of obligatory collection of your data, and you do have more control over it." And I could see that... Obviously there's a user base for that. So, The @ Company has a real unique approach to privacy. And let's do a little deep dive here. I want our listeners to know the inspiration behind it and what you're actually doing to address this. And the beauty of it is, you're really building community. If you go into the website right now, you're talking not only about your own organization, but there's also lots of other like-minded organizations listed on your website, which is always a good sign. So tell us all about it.

Barbara Tallent:
Sure. So, today the way the internet is set up is so that each company has to keep and manage a slice, or even large parts, of your data. And that data is often duplicate data from site to site, and the companies own it unless you live in California or Europe or other areas that have declared privacy rights. And every site that you log into has you and your database and tracks you and your data. And so what we are changing is, we're creating a different architecture on the internet that lets each person own their own data in their own private database, and then grant permission to it. And you can take that permission away even after you granted it, so it's really easy for you to take your data back. And this is going to happen first with some brand new apps that are being created by developers right now who really care about privacy and want to create something that's very compliant.

Barbara Tallent:
And the whole idea was started with my cofounders, Colin and Kevin, and they just hated the way this was set up. And it's so funny because this is painful for people who have to give up their data all the time. But it's also painful for companies who want to protect privacy, because those companies house all this data, it's a big target because it's in one database with one set of keys, and it's also out-of-date in a lot of cases. So insurance companies and banks actually struggle keeping this information up-to-date. So nobody really likes... Well, the only people who like the current architecture of the internet are the companies that are monetizing that data. And so there's a lot of people who don't like it. And so we think that everybody will be open to this new way of doing things. Anything you want to add to that, Jory?

Jory Des Jardins:
Well, I think that what you were just saying about companies and liability tell a story. Companies actually, largely don't want the hassle of having to manage user data. They need user data to be functional, but they don't necessarily want to have to manage it. And it's getting to a point now where it's more of a liability, and especially with laws like CCPA and GDPR, where there's now mandates for how you need to protect... In many ways they're ahead of where we actually are or have been from a technological standpoint. A lot of companies don't quite know how to be compliant, even though they have to be. So this removes a number of headaches, not just for the consumers who want control of their data, but for the companies that have it.

Mathieu Yuill:
So, if I can put this in a real, tangible example to help people that may not be quite getting it, the current model that most of us are used to is, we make a copy of our driver's license, of our bank information, our address, our friends, our favorite color, all that, make a copy and we give it to the company and they store it in their warehouse. What we're talking about now is that we keep all this information in our own homes, and we might give access to company A to come and link in to our home, maybe not even forever, maybe forever, but maybe for a certain amount of time or even a time period, and if we decide to not do business with that company any more, it's our power to cut off that pipe. In that way they don't have access to that information anymore. Is that correct?

Barbara Tallent:
Exactly right. So think about buying a house and you want to give the bank and the title company access to some of your information for that period of time. So you say, "I want you guys to have access for 30 days until these transactions are done." And so, that's how our software is designed, so that you can say how long that you give people access to your data.

Mathieu Yuill:
So, Jory is the CMO at The @ Company. And so, I'm going to speak to Jory and my people. Think about that email list you have.

Jory Des Jardins:
Yes.

Mathieu Yuill:
With an @aol.com address. Like that person's probably moved on. Just imagine it's the little things like that where you're not having to clean databases and the time that takes up. Oh, my gosh, for marketers alone, this would be like-

Jory Des Jardins:
[inaudible 00:13:34].

Mathieu Yuill:
Yeah. I don't want your data, to be honest, just for the logistical hassle. One of my colleagues here at Leading With Nice, before she worked with us, she worked for a trade publication that served the insurance industry, and one of the big hot topics in insurance is cybersecurity insurance. And these companies that didn't even really need... Like, they would need the information from you to open your account or do whatever, but then they didn't really need it after that. But they had it in their database and they were being hacked and having to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their data back. And they're like, "Man, we didn't even need this. It's just big hassle."

Jory Des Jardins:
That's right.

Mathieu Yuill:
You must be hearing this as well.

Jory Des Jardins:
Well, it's funny, you mentioned... Well, advertising is one of the prime areas that this model will be affecting. And you're absolutely right. I think my mom is the only person left on AOL.

Mathieu Yuill:
She was using dial-up at [inaudible 00:14:26] She's on the 14th floor, I'm not going to [inaudible 00:14:28] now.

Jory Des Jardins:
No comment. But that said, the thing that this model does for the advertising industry... Now I used to come from media. That was my business model when I was building a company in the media space, was of course advertising. And the idea is, "Let's get as many ads out to audiences at as high of a price as we could," and we use data to try to qualify those audiences. Great for the publisher. And as Google started to refine its technology and Amazon and big tech in general, it became even more and more refined and able to pick out the right set of eyeballs for a particular ad. What the new model does, is it basically asks for permission to send you information and you have the option of saying yes or no. I think the initial fear is that people will say no all the time, but that's not actually correct.

Jory Des Jardins:
I think we like getting advertisements and offers for things that we actually want to understand and know more about. I want to know if the product that I'm looking for is for sale and on sale. I think I would want to know about a lot of that, and when I was just shopping for a new couch, I was happy to get offers on couches. What I didn't want were the ads that came afterwards, because I had somehow triggered, through my data, that I was looking for a couch and for months afterwards would get these ads in everything I did, for a couch. That's the push model of marketing. We're talking about the pull model, based on what you've said you wanted to understand and know more about for a period of time.

Mathieu Yuill:
Jory, that sound you just heard was people saying, "Preach, sister." That is, "Oh, my gosh, for sure." You know, I bought literally in 2008, I bought a new lamp for a projector, like LED projector. And I am still, to this day, getting ads and emails for different light bulbs and... And like, how often are you buying these things? I've bought one in 12 years. That's how often I'm buying it. Oh. And I've unsubscribed from email newsletters, and eventually I just give up and I block and I do this and that, until they'll never see me again, right? They can never now market to me.

Mathieu Yuill:
But I don't necessarily want that because maybe there'll be the day when my projector bulb burns out and I'll want that again. And also, I want to give it to Jory's mom. Thank you for letting us take a little jab at your AOL account. I feel a bit guilty now. I'm thinking, "What if I was laughing about my mom on the podcast?"

Jory Des Jardins:
Oh, my mom is quite used to it at this point. She's a good sport.

Mathieu Yuill:
Okay. Well, listen Jory's mom, here's an open invitation for you to be a guest now and jab back. Feel free. But so, Barbara, you're a cofounder so this must have been... Like, where were you sitting? I'd love to hear the story about the conversation that led to this. Tell me about where this came from.

Barbara Tallent:
Yeah. So just to give you a little bit more on my background, I was CEO of one of the very first email marketing software companies. So I was very aware of what I'd become from email marketing, which was not what I had thought it was going to be. I had thought it was going to be a great way for companies to reach out to their customers and really give custom offers. And instead it turned into spamming. And I sold that company off and then went off and cofounded an educational start-up. I was trying to do good in the world. And it was great. We grew that company to over a million users and it was going along great when I ran into Kevin again. And Kevin and I had worked together at multiple companies. We did another start-up together, and then we also worked at a company from start-up to public.

Barbara Tallent:
And so he said, "I want you to go to dinner." It was a dinner that we had, and we all went out to dinner one night and Kevin explained the vision of what he and Colin had been working on. And I met Colin and I loved Colin as much as I loved Kevin. So he calls me the next day and says, "Are you in?" And I said, "Sure, I'm in it. This has to happen. And if it's not us, it's got to be somebody else. But let's work to make this happen because this is the right way to do things." And then he told me after that that I was going to be the CEO, which I had not planned on, but-

Jory Des Jardins:
I didn't know that, Barbara.

Barbara Tallent:
You didn't know that?

Jory Des Jardins:
Yeah.

Barbara Tallent:
Yeah, it was a fun story. It's magic how... It was funny. When I was walking to dinner that night, I knew my life was about to change. I could just feel it.

Mathieu Yuill:
That's very cool. For those of you listening, Barbara Tallent, with two Ls, T-A-L-L-E-N-T, and Jory Des Jardins, J-O-R-Y, then D-E-S and J-R-D-I-N-S. Be like me and go greet them on LinkedIn because they're, A) they share some very cool content, and, B) like, "Man, just like this..." I like looking at people's LinkedIn because it's not like a typical resume. There's a story to be told. And you can see how people have developed into what they're sharing today. So definitely go and greet them now, check them out.

Mathieu Yuill:
Last question, because people right now are like thinking, "So, like, yeah, I do want to own my own data. That sounds... It's mine." So give us some practical steps. I always like to leave people with practical application. What can they do right now to begin the journey of owning their data and be able to control the tap, so to speak?

Jory Des Jardins:
I'm happy to share some hacks that I've begun. Now I'm a little farther on the spectrum of conversion to owning and controlling my data, I will admit that. But for years I contemplated whether or not it was a good idea to say, "Stop being on Facebook," or, "Stop using Google." And to be honest, that's not always something that is accessible to everybody because we're so reliant on big tech. That said, there are some things you can do to start to protect, or at least segment out your data. What I did when I was first starting my journey was I separated out my credit cards and email accounts so that if I was buying things, I kept them... And I knew because whenever you buy something, you're on that email list forever. You can't get off that list. I've tried, and in some cases I did get off the list, but in many I didn't.

Jory Des Jardins:
So, I had a card that was basically built for that. And I had an email address that was built for those kinds of communications. Then I kept my family and friend communications on a totally different email, and I had, literally, almost two different lives. This is the idea of creating different personas for your different lives. And that way you can start to keep an idea of what is private and what is not. And then eventually, when you do make some more dramatic moves towards saying, stopping being on a social account, or completely cutting off an email that is for all of your more spammier subjects, then it's not such a hard transition to make. You've already made that split.

Barbara Tallent:
Yeah. I'd like to add a couple of things to that. One is, don't use your Facebook account to sign into other things. That is just giving Facebook more data on you and it's just not the way to go. Also, if you want a private app for chatting, Signal's a really good one for that right now. They are a dot-org and they do not monetize you in any way. And the other thing is, come visit us at atsign.com, sign up for a mailing list because we're always talking about this and our developers are creating some great apps that are going to really help you own your data. And I just want to give one quick example because this app is coming out pretty soon, and it's the contacts app. Kind of imagine your current contacts, if everybody only updated their own data and you didn't have to keep anybody else's data up-to-date. You always had the latest on everybody. So that's the future.

Mathieu Yuill:
If you go to atsign.com, A-T-S-I-G-N.com, that is The @ Company. And this is where you can learn more about what we've been talking about today. I am super excited about this because again, as Jory, as you described, like, I want that personalized marketing, but again, I don't want it for the next 20 years, right? From the same company because one time I bought a light bulb.

Jory Des Jardins:
That's right. Like most humans.

Mathieu Yuill:
Yeah. No, exactly, exactly. Ladies, this has been so amazing. I know that geeking out about privacy and security may not be... Anybody listening right now being like, "Oh, this is not... What? This is kind of interesting." Trust me, you will find it very interesting. You'll be referencing this in a few months as discussions around privacy are being really pushed by big companies like Apple and then other narratives like from big companies like Facebook are being talked about. There's a few people I need thank for helping this podcast come together.

Mathieu Yuill:
First, Cindy Craig, who books all these podcasts and makes it happen. Naomi, who helps come up with these questions and whatnot. So Amazing does research. Jamie Hunter, who's going to turn this into a great blog post and share it on social, and the guy who makes me... I actually sound very nasally in real life. So Austin Pomeroy, our audio tech, makes me sound like the million dollar voice, to say so myself, but Austin does a great job. Thank you to all of them. Barbara, Jory, thank you so much for taking time. I know you're busy, so I appreciate you taking time today to speak with us about privacy and how we can control our own data.

Barbara Tallent:
Thank you so much for having us. That was fun.

Jory Des Jardins:
Thank you.

Mathieu Yuill:
So, again, atsign.com. You can link to their other social from there. Have a great day, and we will see you at leadingwithnice.com.