It’s not sexy but like AI, it’s going to affect your job – and your company. Another salvo in the fast approaching privacy regime set for tabling in parliament in August was fired last week by the ACCC around how personal information is collected and used by data firms – Experian, Nielsen, Publicis-owned Epsilon and Woolworths-owned Quantium were among those flagged by the competition regulator last week in its eighth interim report as part of the multi year Digital Platforms Inquiry. And to be blunt, any professional working in ecom, marketing, customer experience, digital advertising and data and analytics is going to have a rude shock for what they can do now versus what is likely in a year or perhaps a bit longer. But UNSW Business School’s Professor of Practice, Peter Leonard, says last week’s release by the ACCC of its Data Products and Services interim report makes “every firm in this economy a data firm.” And in the short-term, that’s not good news for most companies because their data readiness and maturity is not matched by the “fundamental change” which will force everyone to “rethink their understanding” of what even defines personal information” according to ADMA’s Director of Legal and Advocacy, Sarla Fernando.

Leonard and Fernando are joined by Capital Brief’s Legal and Regulatory Affairs Correspondent, Laurel Henning and Civic Data’s founder, Chris Brinkworth. And for a tantalising teaser, Future Media’s Ricky Sutton lays out the changes Google is making to its search engine which is already seeing organic referral traffic to publishers abroad drop 40 per cent – brands, he says, are facing similar declines.