2021 Tech Predictions from Data Theorem

We wanted to share these great tech predictions – as a guest post from the COO of Data Theorem, Doug Dooley. We hope you find them useful. We think the prediction regarding privacy is especially interesting and you may have noticed Apple continues to differentiate against Google by promoting its adherence to keeping personal data, personal.

COO of Data Theorem, Doug Dooley.

Cloud adoption by Enterprises will accelerate ahead of already aggressive migration plans. Some businesses are estimating more than $100 million dollar in annual savings by moving critical business applications and IT infrastructure to the public cloud and retiring their traditional on-premise data centers. The cost savings are partially gained by cutting license costs of hardware and software running in their traditional data centers. However, it appears there are even larger cost savings by IT support staff reductions which have been getting even more expensive to deploy due to COVID-19 restrictions.

DevSecOps will continue to become a more common approach for managing applications, no longer the practice of just the technology elite. Companies born in the cloud and/or have the majority of their revenue coming from Internet-based consumption have been implementing security automation within their DevOps practices. However, even the non “tech elite” are starting to embrace security automation like never before. Some of it is driven by gains in cost and efficiency. Other factors are due to the increase in Cloud adoption where security automation is the de facto practice, not the exception. COVID-19 restrictions also make it significantly more challenging to bring consultants and auditors onsite to perform penetration testing and review compliance results.

Privacy lawsuits will slowly change behaviors but not all business models will survive. In Nov 2020, California voters passed Proposition 24 which doubled down on California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Within days of the passing of Prop 24, Apple announced they would require all application publishers to fill out a Privacy Disclosure. The privacy disclose includes all data collection, user tracking, and data sharing including sharing with third-party partners. The result will be new privacy “nutrition labels” on all applications listed in the Apple App Store and Mac Store. Some companies whose entire business model is to give away free services in order to harvest their users’ behaviors in order to sell that personal data will be called into question if they fail to disclose it. Further, with new laws like CCPA, many companies will have to adjust their approach to harvesting personal data and some smaller apps may not survive in their current state.

Personal data ownership rights will start to push back against end user legal agreements that no one reads. It has been a norm in the tech industry to require users of software to accept and agree to lengthy multi-page end user license agreements which often releases a person from privacy rights of their own data. The truth is that end user license agreements structured by corporate legal teams may have terms and language that would not be upheld in the upcoming landscape of data privacy laws. We will see increased challenges to these data rights starting in 2021 and beyond.

Personalized news apps will deepen political polarization within the U.S. The November 2020 U.S. presidential election cycle broke all-time records in voter turnout. Media outlets experienced higher than normal viewership. Yet, the lack of trust in media outlets continue to come into question. Fact checking on fake news takes up as much time as the news itself. Data, particularly from trusted sources, used to be a place for rational alignment but even facts are put into question in these times. Frustrations expressed by US voters are often triggered by the blurring lines of data-driven and fact-based reporting, editorialized commentary, and opinions shared via social media. A viral social media post with no facts nor data will often be promoted by news outlets especially when it is popular amongst their viewers. The growing number of alternative news outlets and social media apps appears to be deepening our divisions and increasing distrust for those who have differing political views.

Rich Tehrani is CEO of RT Advisors and a Registered Representative with and offering securities through Four Points Capital Partners LLC (Four Points) (Member FINRA/SIPC). RT Advisors is not owned by Four Points.

The above information was strictly a technical/business news article/review regarding the company(ies) mentioned. The information contained should not be considered and is not a recommendation to invest in or sell short the securities of the underlying company(ies).


 

Loading
Share via
Copy link
Powered by Social Snap