Tackling privacy with Raashee Gupta Erry

Raashee Gupta Erry has had a “windy” career journey, starting in the marketing and advertising space—client-side, agency, ad-tech—before jumping into government, as a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow at the Federal Trade Commission, advising the agency on all aspects of regulating digital advertising and marketing.

Now, as the founder and CEO of Uplevel, she uses her knowledge and experience to help marketing and advertising teams with balancing growth with respecting privacy and compliance.

She says privacy is an area that requires a company-wide awareness, along with nuanced approaches when it comes to various departments and functions.  

“We're not there where everybody's thinking about this,” she says.

They also discuss:

• Raashee’s work at the FTC.

• How businesses and enforcement agencies like the FTC are focused on the same goals, preserving privacy while not hampering growth.

• The biggest privacy challenges faced by enterprises and government departments.

• The move from third- to first-party data, in response to privacy concerns.

• How privacy touches every aspect of an organization, so requires a holistic approach.

• Her advice for organizations approaching a privacy program.

Resources

• 🎧 FILED S2E4: When preparing for privacy reform, privacy by design is key | Chris Brinkworth, Civic Data

• 🎧 FILED S2E9: Privacy must be everyone's responsibility | Debra Farber, Shifting Privacy Left podcast

• 📨 FILED Newsletter: The data privacy regulation floodgates have opened. Time to catch up.  

• 📜Resource: Understanding your data: the ultimate guide

Transcript

Anthony Woodward

Welcome to FILED, a monthly conversation with those of the convergence of data privacy, data security, data regulations, and governance. I'm Anthony Woodward, CEO of RecordPoint, and with me today is my co-host, Kris Brown. Where in the world are you, Kris?  

Kris Brown‍

Today, playing Where's Wally? properly, Anthony, I am in London.

Got in last night, so a little bit hazy still, but it was a beautiful sunny day in London today. Very, very excited about some customer visits this week. Very nice.  

Anthony Woodward

‍And look, I'm really looking forward to today's episode. Kris, did you want to introduce our guest?  

Kris Brown

‍Yeah, look, I'm really excited. We've got Raashee Gupta Erry here.

She's the founder and CEO of Uplevel and former White House Presidential Innovation Fellow at the Federal Trade Commission. Raashee, welcome.  

Raashee Gupta Erry

‍Thank you, Kris. Thank you, Anthony. Excited to be here.

Raashee's career journey

Kris Brown

‍Now, Raashee, I've sort of been trolling through LinkedIn and I've had a look at your bio on the website and certainly even you made me go out to the White House Innovation Fellow website and have a look at what it means to do this.

It's very, very exciting. So, I'd like to start, if you look at your journey, how have you gone from sort of digital marketing at some agencies and some of the largest global brands right through to It'd be getting this position as the White House Presidential Innovation Fellow and advising the Federal Trade Commission.

What sparked your interest in, and how did that all come to be?  

Raashee Gupta Erry

‍Yeah. So, I'll say it's been a windy path to keep it through and it's not a linear journey as you would expect, but just quickly. So, my background has been in advertising and marketing for over 20 years. And I've been in the industry, spent time on the client side, Volkswagen and Samsung.

Spent time in the agency world where the rubber meets the road with agencies, publicist agencies, independent shops, overseeing all the digital advertising for various global clients, like. American Express, T Mobile, Google, to name a few. And then I spent some time in the ad tech world at Newstar, which recently got acquired by TransUnion.

So, at this point, my journey was a three-legged stool. I've been all sides of the ecosystem as they say it. And I think just through this journey is how I got to FTC because they, back in 2020, wrote an article in AdExchanger saying that they were looking for somebody to come help them understand the ad tech ecosystem, the advertising industry.

So, they can get smarter. So, I sort of through my work, I've done, and I will always be in the digital space, data, and data strategy, a lot of like tracking technologies, personalization, all of these things that we talk about as like. Business-as-usual applications in digital advertising and marketing were something that I grew up with.

I've lived it. I've done it for years and just the intersection of that with the growing privacy concerns and the growing privacy regulations is sort of like brought the 2 together and I had a personal interest in exploring sort of what's the evolution of digital advertising and marketing come GDPR, CCPA in 2018.

And. What will that become in future? Is privacy going to be here to stay? And is the implications of privacy and marketing going to be long term? So, that was my personal interest. And then the timing kind of looked out because I saw this opportunity at the Federal Trade Commission and I sort of raised my hand and, you know, Fast forward to today, I spent a term at the FTC working across all sides of their portfolio.

So, division of consumer protection and division of competition. And I work in the office of technology, which is housed within the chair's office to really Create this culture and to help them understand and unpack some of these intersections between data privacy competition and consumer production.

And I sort of function there as a subject matter expert in regard to the marriage between advertising and data privacy.  

Kris Brown

‍I think it's really interesting watching someone go through that motion of being a part of the marketing space and obviously. Trying to collect as much of that data, take the advantage of that data and use it back for the businesses to get an advantage.

But now having morphed into, well, what are we doing and why is it important? And obviously with the rise and rise of privacy around that data, that's a really great journey and really interesting for our audience to understand.  

Anthony Woodward

‍Are you able to share with them actually some of the big things you did? I believe you were involved with the Google Sandbox and some of the Apple anti-tracking conversations.

How much are you able to share?  

Raashee Gupta Erry

‍Yeah, I think what I would say is the limited information that I can share is that what I was very amazed to see is all the things that we in the industry are grappling with privacy sandbox ATT and now with a lot of ID solutions, data clean rooms. All of these conversations that are happening in the industry from a business perspective, in terms of like, how do we deal with data deprecation?

How do we deal with cookie deprecation? How do we deal with loss of signals? So, we are looking at it from a business perspective, like we need to find solutions so we can keep doing what we were doing and sort of retain some of our old ways of working. And on the other side, When I was at FTC, we were, they are looking at the same exact things.

They're looking at the same sort of changes that are happening in the ecosystem, but looking at it to see how much of a consumer harm do these cause? Are these practices fair? Are these practices transparent enough? And if they're not, how can they bridge that gap with regulation, with rulemaking, with guidance, that businesses, at the end of the day, regulators don't want to stifle competition or don't want to stifle innovation, but they want to make sure that they are done with something.

Some sort of respect to consumers, some sort of transparency to consumers. So, that was, I think, the really interesting part for me, given I've been in the business, and I've been always sort of like focused on like, okay, we need data, we need to mine more data. We need to use data. We need to make more money and we need to sort of think about it in that sense.

On the other side, is there a way to do these things, but do with some respect to consumers? Do it with respect to privacy, do it with respect to some of the guardrails, because long term that does help business because consumers are becoming more savvy, right?  

So, with Apple, they are sort of using privacy as their way of working as their model, and they are really creating a culture of amongst consumers, and they are sort of creating this notion that they need to own their privacy. They need to own their data and they need to have controls. So, given the world is moving towards that and consumers are getting more savvy. It was very interesting for me to see both sides and then now looking at it very objectively.

And advising companies that, hey, you are using data, do it right. And then this is how you can still win while doing it right.  

Anthony Woodward

‍I'd love to dig into, because you brought it up briefly there, around things like AI and bias and algorithmic harm, which I think links into a lot of those conversations. Did you look at that in any detail?

And how does that form part of that conversation?  

Raashee Gupta Erry

‍Yeah, so one of my work products at FTC was helping them stand up the office of technology. So, when I was there, we had started like the blueprint of that, like a very early stage, but now it's a formal office. And in that office, the purpose of that was to look at these evolving technologies, look at these innovative technologies, and get ahead and help them.

FTC get ahead with some of these questions, whether it's AI, whether it's machine learning, whether it's sort of, we even looked at back then when Bitcoin was still a thing and crypto was big and, and some of these technologies, some of these new innovations. Early on and consistently so that these things can be factored in to your point, right?

Fairness, bias, deception, all of these conversations and all of these vectors that are important and data ethics becomes a part of it, too. So, yes, those conversations happening and those that work almost led to some of the things that you see in FTC's enforcement today. Because if you see, they're becoming very creative and their remedies are becoming very novel, like, so when they are enforcing against the company, sometimes you may see algorithmic discouragement, which means all the data that was used for developing an algorithm that caused consumer harm should be deleted.

They're talking about data deletion. They're talking about personal liability to the C suite. So, a lot of these things were the work that came out of some of that early thinking.  

Raashee's work at Uplevel

Anthony Woodward

‍Fantastic. And when you come to think about Uplevel today, what are you guys doing now post the FTC? Obviously, some amazing stuff there at the FTC, but where does that bring you right up to now?

Raashee Gupta Erry

‍Yeah, so with often Uplevel, where that sits is, as I mentioned earlier, I've been in the advertising marketing world for a long time and focused on digital and data solutions. And then my time, work time at FTC also looked at regulating some of these practices and companies. So, Uplevel is a culmination of both the experiences that I have, and we have a small team of people where we work with businesses to really help them evolve their marketing and advertising practices where privacy can be a strategy built in early on, where privacy can be an advantage for them.

When we talk about some of the tactics, right? So, in the world of advertising, marketing, you always use pixels, you use trackers, so that's an area that's a very common, like given practice, but there's a lot of scrutiny around it, right? That's where we guide, for example, companies, if you're using pixels and trackers, are you doing it properly?

Are you, do you know where your pixels are collecting? Is there sensitive data that's at play here? Is there consumer consent that have you taken. So, the other thing is like a lot of regulations. A lot of regulators are talking about if you're using data, if you're using any data or personal data or sensitive data, there are degrees of consent that need to be collected.

So, helping some of the marketers develop consent management strategies. For navigate the whole consent management platform world to some extent, and then data strategy is an important component that has been there from very beginning when we were starting to look at sort of, how do you amplify your existing data with third-party data?

Now, the tables have turned where you want to use less third-party data, but you want to maximize the use of 1st party data and build those first-party solutions and cultivate more data. So, that's another area where we advise companies. So, it's a lot of sort of like. Helping businesses evolve from their existing practices to expand and bring in new practices, which are more privacy-focused.

What are the biggest privacy challenges companies are facing?

Anthony Woodward

‍And what, which sounds amazing. It's such a great blending and very much what we talk a lot about here at FILED. What do you see is the biggest challenges for enterprises and governments and what are You talked before about creating best practice and I'll admit my bias up front behind this question: how do you see its impact on data in a more broad sense?

Because there's a lot of conversation about pixels, and it's probably worth explaining a little bit for the users. But there's a lot more behind that than the enterprise has around what they have on you, how that connects into regulations. We've seen it in GDPR, we now see it in some of the evolving regulatory landscape.

What do you see? What do your customers say?  

Raashee Gupta Erry

‍Yeah, I think the challenges are real, it's and they are real because they are coming from a lot of different sides for a business, for an enterprise and at the still they have to sort of, they're dealing with the business, regular business, everyday challenges, but on top of it, some of these privacy challenges are sort of fundamental.

And it makes it more of a complex world. So, one comes in the form of a lot of regulations, right? So, you have obviously global GDPR, but then we have a lot of state regulations. Now we were at 18 states today that have comprehensive privacy laws. Then to top it up, you have sector specific laws that are privacy specific that may be applicable to some companies versus others.

So, like there's health data, which is like Washington's My Health, My Data law is one of the big ones. Then you have children's privacy with COPPA. So, the complexity of regulations is a big challenge and that becomes very resource intensive. So, resource intensive, not just from legal side, but also from a business side, because if you are dealing with a magnitude of laws and they all have their own nuanced requirements, it takes time, it takes effort, and it takes a lot of strategic thinking of how do you want to approach this.

Is this a single--? Are you, like, aligning yourself to a single precedent, or are you trying to take a multi-jurisdictional approach, and how are you, sort of, dealing and navigating around it? The risk of non-compliance has increased a lot because we are seeing more active enforcement coming from Federal side as well as state regulators are now gearing up for enforcement as they are getting situated and their laws are going into effect.

And then lastly, there's a lot of change happening from both technology and consumer perspective, right? So, in the marketing world, we talk about privacy sandbox, ATT. So, these are all the changes that are happening. Then consumers, right? So, consumers are getting more savvier. There's a lot more opt out that you're seeing.

There's a lot of data subject requests. that are coming in for, for businesses. So, that's another area. A lot of walled gardens are cropping up, so it's hard for businesses and for marketers to do the job without getting too many silos in the play. So, those are some of the real challenges that businesses we see here in us dealing with every day.

Anthony Woodward

‍Yeah. Probably just to explain to the user, when you say ATT, you mean App Tracking Transparency.  

I'm sure there's a bunch of users. I don't want to call Kris out, but I'm sure he knew the acronym.  

Kris Brown

‍I was about to say, I don't use that cell provider, so it's okay, you can call me out. But Raashee, look, there's some real issues that you just called out then, right?

What privacy advice does Raashee and Uplevel offer companies?

And so, these businesses, they're coming to organizations like yourself at Uplevel, how are they navigating this or what's the advice you're giving them to sort of balance that growth? Because ultimately, as you said, even coming out of the FTC side, they're not looking to stifle innovation or stifle growth, but how do they balance that growth with privacy?

What's the advice you're giving them?  

Raashee Gupta Erry

‍Yeah, so I think, I mean, just talking about giving the listeners here, we're talking to folks who have various roles in business as opposed to legal. So, taking a business view at it, a lot of the strategies I think the companies can adopt are very fundamental. And also, they are cross cutting.

They're not just legal practices, but they are more practices that are strategic, that are rooted in data and data touches all functions in an organization. So, a big one is data minimization. So, that's becoming a big theme here in terms of this whole premise of only collect the data that you want, or you absolutely need.

I think gone are the days when you can collect anything and everything and say, okay, we're going to keep it and we may use it at one point or the other. And nobody's going to question it. So, that doesn't exist anymore. Data minimization is a big thing, and that applies to various components of an organization, whether you're in product, whether you're in it, whether you are in marketing, whether you are in sales, or obviously legal looks at it from a business perspective.

Perspective of regulations, right? So, that's a big thing and that comes alongside with looking at a lot of the guidance that some of the regulators are putting out. They are not necessarily regulation or a letter of law, but they are more like guidance and practices that signal some of the things that they are looking at and it gives you a soft sort of nudge.

In terms of what businesses should be doing, or should not be doing, or where they may be. Focusing their attention on the future. Third thing is really understand where your business is in the present time. So, doing it more in the form of gap assessments, like what are some of the current issues in terms of compliance that your company may be facing right now, if there is gaps, then really understand that.

And that is Gives way to an assessment for risk tolerance. So, let's say you have a numerous gaps, but then some are probably easy to close, and some are longer on a longer horizon. So, having an understanding of how much risk a company is willing to take and how much sort of is at stake or not at stake is very important.

And when we talk to businesses, especially with marketers and advertisers, we offer this thing as a very, very early, non-threatening way to do an assessment called issue spotting. So, this is something that we learned, I actually learned at FTC, is that is a very objective look into the business, almost from a vantage point of a consumer and a regulator.

And seeing like, okay, this is what the outside sees. This is all the questions that they have in their mind when they look at a business, when they look at their practices, when they look at their communications, when they look at their website before even digging in into compliance. So, that's something that is very eye opening and it's more, it's very, it's a proactive and an easy way to then understand.

And Kris, your question was what are the strategies? I think that would be. One of the early things that you can do is at least get awareness for yourself and your teams and then start to dig in.  

Privacy impacts all parts of an organization

Kris Brown

‍It's interesting, right? Like being here at RecordPoint, we're obviously at that intersection of privacy, security and data governance.

And it was warming to hear that ultimately data minimization is one of the core things that can be done as you've just said now, but I'm interested who exactly in the business are you talking to? Is it just the marketers? Because I think as you pointed out, this is a whole of organization problem.

Should I expect, or if I'm a listener and let's imagine I'm in the governance space in my business, should I expect that the marketing team is going to be reaching out and saying, hey, what are we doing here? How can we do this better? Have we got that level of awareness coming?  

Raashee Gupta Erry

‍Yeah, I think that's a big, I would say, opportunity area and also a problem today is when people think privacy, when people think data protection, they think it's a legal domain.

Or it's a privacy domain because some companies are starting to now have privacy teams in addition to legal teams or an extension of that may be like, oh, we've heard of privacy by design that falls within product. So, this is a product function. To be honest, it's increasingly clear from what we see in the regulatory and enforcement space that that's not the only place where this lives because marketers are being challenged by some of these enforcements and these laws, because it's directly hitting advertising and marketing tactics. So, third-party data or using ad tech vendors using some of these tracking technologies.

These are all, these were never something that privacy people or legal people weren't making decisions on. These things were in the hands of people who are doing their marketing, who may be building the website, who may be making these decisions in terms of which market have tech vendors to use. How are we going to measure?

How are we going to target people? So, to your point, it is an area that requires a company-wide awareness with nuances of how this is applicable to various functions. We're not there where everybody's thinking about this. I think people are starting to give a head nod and they kind of remotely know that, okay, this is an area I should care about, but it still needs some work, and it still needs to be sort of an area where it becomes part of the strategy.

Going into, and to your question about, do we only work with advertisers and marketers? So, Uplevel only works with advertisers and marketers, but I personally am involved in other organizations as well, where I'm talking to other companies, right? So, I am on the board of The Ethical Tech Project, which talks to c-suite and various entities within an organization about ethical data use.

So, that's a non-profit. I also consult and advise. with Lucid Privacy, which is a compliance and privacy operations management organization that works with a legal counsel and privacy officer. So, when I see it, I see there's a need from all sides. It just comes with different applications.  

Data minimization is a whole-of-business privacy strategy

Kris Brown

‍Yeah, no, thanks for that insight.

As I said, it's very interesting to see, for us at least, where other parts of the business are thinking about this space. If I look at some of the things that are very obvious it is: there is that consent management and marketers have, you know, very much been targeted by those vendors around making sure they understand whose data they're collecting.

And as you say, even back to your FTC comments earlier, making sure they understand that they've got some level of consent, but it's not just the data in the website. It's not just the data collected by the pixel. It's all of the data in all of the organization that is key here. And. As using data minimization as an example, data minimizing in one area doesn't sort of protect the business, I guess, if you will.

Raashee Gupta Erry

‍Yeah, I think, I mean, taking it like a step above the conversation we've had, like collecting data on a website or in a product, right? It's a very much of a strategic function. It sometimes fits with a data officer. Sometimes sits with a chief strategy officer, sometimes sits in product planning.

So, again. If those people are making decisions on what they want to collect and how they want to collect, that's where the decision in terms of data minimization also lies. It's, okay, how much do we want to limit? Because, so that is, again, becomes a very much of a real business conversation as opposed to tucked into a corner or put in the, in the world of legal and privacy alone.

The evolution of data privacy law around the world

Anthony Woodward

‍I think it brings up some really interesting issues though and I probably wanted to draw the conversation although I'm currently sitting in in Sydney I spent a big chunk of my life in Washington state and the new legislation that's being proposed in the U. S. federally has been brought about by, by my two senators in Washington state, so very proud of what they've done there in bringing together the American Privacy Rights Act.

What do you think about the switch to the opt-out versus opt-in and, and where do you see that landscape evolving to? And clearly there's a bit of momentum behind that act now and hopefully that continues, but are we seeing a shift in that landscape?  

Raashee Gupta Erry

‍Yeah, glad you brought it up, because that's like the hot topic right now with the American Privacy Rights Act, right?

Given we don't have federal privacy law here, there have been attempts made for numerous years now, but this one seems to be sort of continuing to get momentum. And most recently, I think this Thursday is when it's going to be put out for a vote in the executive, in the committee. Energy the House Energy Committee, so I think that would be interesting to see what comes out of it.  

But your point, there is very strong data minimization mandate in this again, and there is, it's considered to some extent, even stricter than GDPR because of the opt-in requirements. And there are some sticky points here regarding. Private right of action, as well as sort of preemption for state laws. So, I think those things are so sort of, we have to wait and see where it shakes out, given it's an election year also here in the US.

So, it's very interesting times. I think that's TBD, but in general, I think people have always wanted a federal privacy law just because we have patchwork of state laws, which is becoming more and more difficult for companies to comply with, we are at 18 variable will be the number is continuously growing. But that is very limiting in terms of like, expenses that companies have to deal with in regards to compliance, the complexity with trying to deal with nuances of each law and trying to standardize some of these things. So, that's definitely an area of focus and we still have to wait and see where that lands.  

Kris Brown

‍Yeah, look, I think it'll be really interesting, even just watching and working with companies out of the States ourselves, having them having to deal with all of these different legislations.

It'll be interesting to see how California goes. I think I read some of the other parts to one of the proposing members was very clear that, you know, big tech probably isn't going to get their say as well this time either. So, it's going to be a fun one to watch. Good from the outside looking in type situation.

But again, I think anywhere where there can be simplification or legislation, that's obviously going to help business. You would hope then that also helps, you know, obviously the consumer. And I liked the term you used earlier. And one of our previous guests, Debra Farber was the same. It was the consumer harm, or the minimization of harm is, is really what we're all about with that legislation.

So, it's looking good. Fingers crossed, I guess, you know, Australia. In the reverse, August is when ours is being proposed as well. So, there's a lot going on here in that regulatory space as this legislation continues to move. And we're all sort of watching, I guess, with bated breath almost. So, look, thanks for that commentary there, Raashee.

What does the future of data privacy look like?

I want to sort of do the, let's look into the crystal ball type piece, but what does this look like for businesses? How will this space evolve? Where are we in two to three years from now? I think looking any further than that's probably too far. But with all of these pieces growing, obviously, even perhaps I haven't asked you the question about AI, but how does AI fit into all of this?

And what does the future look like for businesses in this smart tech space?

Raashee Gupta Erry

‍We can tackle AI first. So, I think AI has become sort of the shiny object in recent times, but to be honest, like, it's become so important because with the advent of ChatGPT, we put it in the hands of the consumers and productize it to extent that anybody and everybody can just go online and use it.

The reality is AI, machine learning, all of these things have been happening behind the scenes for a really long time. So, we've automated decision making and machine learning and professional intelligence. All of these things have been used by businesses. To make various simple and complex decisions for a long time and data models that have been used for the purpose and have been trained for that purpose all along.

It's that putting a consumer face to it has made it much more, I would say, exciting as well as concerning. To a big extent, and the privacy principles apply to AI regardless whether it's becoming the consumer face or was always behind the scenes. The same principles apply in regard to do you have permission to use the data, whether in the past we would only think of like direct use of data, whether somebody's collecting it is a use for marketing purposes, or are we, do we have purpose?

Clear and clarity and what sort does it do use for when we need some like permissions and consent. But with AI, the use case is evolving in the sense that is the data being used for training models. And if it's used for training models, do we know, do the consumers know that that is the case? And what data is being used for training for astrologists, being normalized, and so on.

So, a lot of those questions still apply, like those basic guardrails of privacy still apply to AI. And then jumping to the second question that you had was, what does future hold? I think the future in here is, as we've talked about this in the past 30 minutes, it's, it's the complex environment that you live in, whether you're in states or Australia or just globally.

Privacy is increasing across the board. So, from a legal perspective, I think There's going to be more laws, but also a demand for harmonization of laws. I think everybody will want to have some sort of sanity so that they can comply with fewer laws, or at least have some normalcy and categorization of law, if you will.

So, that they can have more easier compliance against it. Second, from a consumer perspective, I think consumers are continuously going to be given more rights. We are constantly seeing, like, more enhanced consumer rights that have happened over time. And also, increase in consent. So, we're seeing a change towards not just opt-in. It's not just opt-out, but opt-in consent, and that has become more and more prevalent with different types of data. Third, from a business perspective, we've talked about data minimization and then additionally purpose limitation. I think that has been very much of a GDPR sort of domain, but I can see that being more and more area it can apply to a lot more of the laws that are coming out.

So, purpose limitation from a product perspective, I think privacy by design has always been talked about. I see much more focus on evolution of privacy enhancing technologies and how they fit within the privacy design frameworks and applications. Well, as an area where the product can see a chain.

Marketing, consumer trust is a big component. Like, how do you get consent and maintain consumer trust? Brand differentiation is an area with probably a good possibility because privacy, as we've seen with Apple, they're using privacy and privacy is big from their marketing standard and they are using that to create a brand differentiation and create consumer trust and ranking.

So, I think privacy can be a marketing advantage. Plus, a lot of tactics are failing. So, first- party data is becoming a lot more important in the world of marketing, which comes with permission and placement. So, I think I just rattled a whole bunch of things. But I feel when I was trying to touch, like, how things will change in each domain, and then in a, in an organization, so product, or marketing.

So, I feel like there's something for everybody.  

Kris Brown

‍It was a big question, so I think it deserved a big answer, Raashee.  

Will there ever be a solution to help users manage their privacy across their digital life?

Anthony Woodward

‍Yeah, and look, I think there's so much to discuss in this space, and there's so, you know, we are really at the early days of an evolution here. I think we saw the revolutionary elements when we originally saw GDPR, and that was a while ago now, but as we see other places catch up, So, the notion of the controls and probably even step beyond GDPR and what we're seeing with the new legislation there in the US and similar things happening in the Pacific, in Australia and New Zealand and other places like that, there's a real evolution, I think, with the intent of allowing individuals to have more control, like if you really come back to the core, that's really the essence of this space. Do you see a future if you go beyond the current landscape and all of the different labels we put on things to a place where I, as an individual, really have control of my data?

Is there a place where you think the regulation and the technology come together to allow me to go? Look, these pieces I'm good with. That's not. I don't have a dashboard of that as an individual.  

Raashee Gupta Erry

‍Part of me would be like, if we have that, if we can get to that, that'd be great. But at the same time, the other part of me is skeptical about it.

Like, is that even ever possible, right? Because for that to ever happen, there's so much that needs to go into it. And interoperability comes to mind as a big component. If you were to have a dashboard of all my data across the whole digital ecosystem and the web, that means everybody has to work with everybody.

But then that becomes like, well, it's about privacy. How can one company give my data to another company and under the concept of interoperability and at the same time competition, right? So, data is the fuel data is your currency to compete in this world. And if you're sharing that data with everybody, that you're hurting competition.

So, I think it's part wishful thinking and also there's a lot to think about. Like, is that even possible? That is, do I even want that?  

Anthony Woodward

‍No, and great point. Yeah, it was really great to go through. We could talk for hours here and I'm sure you'd probably get very sick of me asking questions, but there's so much I've learned already and would love to get more context.

And we'd love to have you back as a guest at some point. It's been an amazing conversation. Thank you very much for coming on the podcast.  

Raashee Gupta Erry

‍Yeah. Thank you so much. This is great. It's a lot to think about.  

Anthony Woodward

‍Yeah, absolutely. And there's so much, there really is. Like we, as I said, we did go on for quite some time.

Thanks all for listening. I'm Anthony.  

Kris Brown

‍And I'm Kris Brown, and we'll see you next time on FILED.