What You Need to Know

• IAB Data panel heard growing concern that consumer data is being weaponised, for instance by airlines allegedly using it to hike prices, to platforms profiting billions while users see little return.

• Data Co Labs’ Danny Tyrrell called the “free” model a lazy fiction, arguing that platforms profit disproportionately while individuals aren’t properly compensated.

• The Media Store's Nicholas Hayes said the real failure is transparency: consumers never got a fair shot at understanding the data‑for‑service trade, though many will willingly share data if the deal is clear.

• Data Synergies’ Peter Leonard highlighted Vitality UK’s approach as a more honest model: A free Apple Watch in return for personal data used for insurance pricing but for which Vitality pledged never to charge more that the rack rate for premiums - it's a “floor price plus benefit” for the customer rather than a vague promise of “free.”

• With privacy reform looming via the Productivity Commission’s "two track" proposal, panellists agreed the industry must rebuild trust through clarity, fairness and real consumer value,  or watch the myth of “free” collapse entirely.

Ever since AT&T served the very first banner ad onto the Hotwired website on October 27, 1994, adtech canon law has been anchored by what the industry long held to be an uncontestable truth – the consumer gets free stuff and in return the platform gets your data and serves you an ad.

No one much cared that consumers weren’t consulted. Suck it up, cupcake.

But if a brand uses customer data to hike prices or diminish service levels for one customer while charging another less for the same product, has the value exchange finally morphed into weaponisation?

It’s not a theoretical dilemma – It's already happening, with The Economist recently reporting about the practice in the airline industry. It's also the bedrock of the Productivity Commission’s “Two Track privacy proposal."

And with that, adtech’s longest-held axiom starts breaking down.

It was an issue Mi3 challenged panellists to address at yesterday’s IAB data event in Sydney.  The result was something approaching violent agreement (with a small caveat).

Cracks in the ‘free’ narrative

According to Danny Tyrrell, Co‑Founder of Data Co Labs, “We say that things are free on the web, but what is the value of really being free?

“I'm not going to point at the major tech platforms", he said, just prior to pointing the finger at major tech platforms. “They’ve created massive profits of using people’s data. And have individuals really benefited in the right way? I don’t know… I just don’t think that stacks up anymore.”

Tyrrell argued that the “free” exchange is a lazy line that no longer reflects reality.  Put simply, if people’s data is generating billions for platforms, the claim that users are properly compensated looks flimsy at best.

Transparency and consumer awareness

For Nicholas Hayes, Head of Digital at The Media Store, the problem is less about whether a value exchange exists and more about whether consumers ever had a chance to understand it.

“Where we missed the opportunity was better communicating to consumers as to what that cost was on the way… no one reads a privacy policy. So I think what we should start doing, publisher, advertisers, everyone, is be really clear to consumers as to what the underlying cost is in that data exchange so they are better informed.”

Hayes pointed out that consumers are not helpless. Many are willing to trade data for convenience when they see the value.

“Great example, I would happily keep my personal data in the maps ecosphere because I don’t want to pay a couple of hundred bucks for the service, but I’d happily take my data out of Meta.”

That trade‑off only works, however, when people are told clearly what they are giving up and what they are getting back. Right now, that clarity is largely absent.

Toward a fairer value exchange

Peter Leonard, Principal and Director at Data Synergies, suggested the industry needs to move beyond the binary of free versus paid. His example: Vitality UK, a health insurer that gave customers an Apple Watch if they agreed to share health data.

“If you wore the Apple smart watch for a certain number of months, and allowed your data to be shared and used for them in their insurance pricing, they would guarantee that they would never charge you more than the rack rate for insurance, and that they might give you a benefit based upon that data.”

The point wasn’t that Vitality’s model is perfect,  but that it offers a clearer, more sophisticated way of setting the terms of exchange.

That's more “Floor price plus potential benefit,” rather than free service, trust us.

When data turns against the customer

Back at the airline example – a real one based on the alleged behaviour of United, American and Delta in the US, per an example provided by Leonard. The contradiction is stark. If data is used to optimise prices upward for certain customers, in other words, to make them pay more than someone else for the same service, then the idea of “free” collapses entirely.

The industry knows it. Tyrrell questioned the “free” myth. Hayes wants honesty about the true cost. Leonard points to models where customers can at least see the deal.

For marketers, publishers and platforms, the message is clear: when data turns against the customer, the value exchange isn’t just broken - it was never real in the first place.