In our 5 minutes with profiles, MEF members talk about their business, their aspirations for the future and the wider mobile industry. This week, CEO and Founder Jon Fisse introduces Atomite.
What does Atomite do?
Atomite is a data privacy management (DPM) enterprise specifically designed to address regulatory mandates that B2C companies interested in redeploying their customers’ personal information for marketing, IoT or other alternative purposes should only do so after providing those customers with bona fide transparency, choice, consent rights and consideration.
In a nutshell, Atomite’s TransPrivacy™ offering rewards customers of B2C company licensees who opt-in and permission those licensees to use their personal data for marketing or other alternative purposes. These customers earn Privacy Points™ redeemable for valuable goods and services. Through the use of an intuitive UI, licensee customers have full control over what information is shared, with whom, for what purposes and for how long, as well as the ability to view, edit, delete and port their data.
Atomite is not just a DPM software solutions company; our core mission is to serve as a credible bridge between privacy regulators and B2C companies in heavily-regulated industry verticals…”
Atomite conducts periodic digital audits to ensure that its B2C licensees are respecting customer-reflected choices regarding the use of their personal data for marketing or other alternative purposes, thereby enhancing their trust and goodwill with both customers and relevant governmental authorities.
When did you launch and what growth have you seen?
Understanding that a paradigm shift in consumer privacy expectations and regulations was imminent, Atomite was formed in 2016 in order to afford B2C companies with a clear and convincing choice when deciding upon whether to build, buy or align with an entity able to offer those companies’ customers with opt-in capability regarding what information they gather, with whom they share it, for what purposes and for how long, in addition to making available to their customers the ability to view, edit, delete and port their first party data.
What are your main goals?
Atomite is not just a DPM software solutions company; our core mission is to serve as a credible bridge between privacy regulators and B2C companies in heavily-regulated industry verticals in order to be able to both influence public policy and stay ahead of the regulatory curve for the benefit of our licensees by continuing to introduce robust features and functionalities responsive to regulatory concerns.
One recent example of Atomite’s efforts to influence public policy can be found in the comments it submitted in the context of the US FCC’s consideration of prescriptive broadband privacy rules in 2016. These comments, which advocated for a public-private multi-stakeholder initiative resulting in the development, implementation and enforcement of dynamic industry best practices, can be accessed here.
Where do you see yourselves in three years’ time?
In each phase of our growth, Atomite needs to offer innovative DPM solutions that comport with the evolving privacy-respecting expectations and capabilities of our B2C company licensees, as well as those of their customers and regulators.
Today, with the underpinnings of an embryonic consumer data marketplace just beginning to materialize, it is critical that Atomite lay the foundation to scale our business by offering our TransPrivacy offering to our B2C company licensees as a white-labeled solution.
In three years’ time, with a robust set of B2C company licensees, significant brand equity and a more mature consumer data marketplace, Atomite will become a standalone consumer privacy clearinghouse, a platform on which B2C companies, as well as their customers and other stakeholders, can transact in the commercialization of consumer data in a manner which ensures bona fide transparency, choice, consent rights and consideration.
What aspect of mobile is most exciting to you right now?
Given that they are comparatively well-trusted by consumers, have technological and operational competencies across key parts of the consumer IoT value chain, and own customer service and distribution networks, mobile network operators (MNOs) are in a strong position to act as natural consumer IoT trust brokers (i.e., brokering a trusted, mutually beneficial exchange of their customers’ personal data across an ecosystem of trusted technology and service partners).
To seize the opportunity, MNOs need to imbue their subscriber relationships with more trust and evolve their current business model, which involves the transfer of personal data from the subscriber to the MNO as a condition of enabling and accessing the MNO’s services, to a more enlightened business model which involves a co-equal relationship between an MNO and subscriber with the MNO positioning itself as a ‘trust broker’ in consumer IoT: helping both to audit and eliminate the security and privacy risks across the whole delivery chain (both directly and through partnership ecosystems), and to provide a trusted single source of advice, service, and product support for consumers concerned about the risks and unsure of the benefits of consumer IoT.
One way in which an MNO can seize the opportunity is to leverage partnerships with ‘best-of-breed specialists’ like Atomite which enable MNOs to practice enlightened data stewardship practices for the benefit of multiple stakeholders (i.e., MNOs, their subscribers, mobile ad networks, consumer insight companies and regulators).
What’s the most critical issue that will hit mobile within the next 12 months?
Having purportedly missed the OTT (over-the-top) and mobile messaging opportunities, the critical question that will require a dispositive answer in the coming year is whether MNOs are willing to flex a more entrepreneurial muscle and dedicate sufficient resources in order to seize the opportunity to serve as their subscribers’ trust brokers across industry verticals as those subscribers begin to engage in a developing consumer privacy marketplace.
Apart from your own, which mobile companies are the ones to watch in the year ahead?
Simply put, those MNOs which seize the opportunity referenced in the response to the immediately preceding question and position themselves as bona fide trust brokers on behalf of their subscribers will merit a close watch for years to come.
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