Ever been fed up with your bank? Maybe you were satisfied with the interest rate the first few months, then suddenly the percentage surged, or the bank services got sloppy. Perhaps you’ve ended a call with customer service saying, “Well, I’ve had enough. I’m switching banks.”
Fortunately, bank account portability is as regular as it can be. Thanks to bank portability laws, leaving a provider isn’t an empty threat. Customers can switch banks without fear of losing money and sensitive information.
What if this same portability feature applies to your data?
What is Data Portability?
Data portability is the ability to move data among different applications, programs, computing environments, or cloud services. But why does it matter? Suppose you are a theme park business owner and built a website a few years back. However, now the service provider has increased the hosting rates? Ideally, the first solution would be to switch the service provider, but it is not as easy as it sounds.
When you wish to move your data from one service provider to another, your service provider can deliver your data with just a click on a download button. They would save all your images and content in a machine-readable structured format. Nonetheless, you can only switch to the next service provider if a website displays a similar layout and service for your posts.
You must’ve come across privacy policy emails from entertainment giant companies whenever they update their policies. These changes result from a regulation called General Data Protection (GDPR). European Union constructed the rules to let the data companies know how data sharing works on the internet. Consequently, one of the regulations of GDPR encourages online service providers to get together and agree on a compatible database format.
How Does it Affect Entertainment Enterprise?
Data exploitation is an integral part of many digital entertainment businesses, and use cases range from analytics to community engagement to monetization methods and optimization. Interestingly, strong data portability laws could oblige data holders to release data irrespective of their commercial interests. Content distribution companies could benefit from data portability laws by cutting the knots from expensive data holders. Additionally, the companies can unlock their data and move between platforms. Consequently, the company could use the data well beyond its primary purpose after combining and reusing it in novel ways.
Finally, we already know how OTT platforms collect, store, and use a massive amount of data to gain deeper insights into customers. Additionally, the proliferation of devices and applications significantly increased the consumption of content and data. Hence, as the customer’s demand for personalized content increases. Data portability laws benefit companies in elevating data accessibility and consumers with greater privacy.
On second thought, in a practical scenario, all the service providers agreeing on all the GDP regulations is still a long way to go. While the right to data portability is far from perfect, it will be interesting to see how it evolves as time flows.
