Should MSPs Promote Privacy?

There is a movement underway and to the untrained eye, it is difficult to see. In summary, this movement against big cloud companies who gather massive amounts of personal and corporate data and sell to advertisers. Many companies do this so I will not name names. What is important for this discussion is a) that you acknowledge this activity exists, b) acknowledge that there are parties (even coalitions) moving against such data privacy invasions, and c) that there may be a role for managed service providers to play in safeguarding against this privacy invasion.

Here are the facts:

GDPR

GDPR has been passed as a law and is being implemented as we speak. This law's motives are plain for anyone to see: to protect data and privacy belonging to European citizens. In the eyes of the Europeans, large public cloud companies are the main culprits behind the loss of their privacy in recent years.

Cloud Advertising

Public cloud companies who offer advertising, have come under attack recently for the "veracity" of their news and advertising models. Beyond the political relevance, advertisers are now wondering if promoting their brands, on platforms they consider to be "fake",  is a good way to spend their advertising dollars.

Cyber Attacks

Without doubt, we have seen a large scale increase in the number of cyber attacks along with the notoriety of the attacks (meaning, the attacks today are publicized more than they were in years past). This activity brings more attention to the MSP community, who frequently are involved, in some measure, in preventing, identifying, or remediating such attacks.

So, what are MSPs to do? MSPWorld 2018 will address this issue in its Cyber Security Symposium. Among the many topics to be covered:

1. Do MSPs have a role in fighting cyber security threats?
2. If so, what is that role?
3. How should MSPs interact with the very public cloud companies accused of data privacy violations?
4. Do MSPs have any legal liability, one way or the other, for involving themselves in the fight against cyber crime and cyber attacks.
5. Are MSPs equipped to address the many threats facing themselves and their customers?

MSPs are evolving. What are we becoming? That's what we hope to find out.