If you could put a price tag on your privacy, what would it be worth? Dimitri Maex, Managing Director of OgilvyOne New York’s new book, Sexy Little Numbers: How to Grow Your Business Using the Data You Already Have, suggests the value of privacy has changed; “it is no longer a question of consumers’ willingness to share data but one of establishing a fair value exchange.” According to Maex’s Sexy Little Numbers, the changing perspectives on privacy present new opportunities for customers as well as businesses that develop incentives to build more intimate relationships between consumers and brands identifying three types of value exchanges among three emerging customer groups.

Privacy has been a hot button issue since before Mark Zuckerberg’s famous “All Things D” interview in which, questions over privacy led him to break out in sweats. But, Facebook isn’t the only company testing the ambiguous waters of user data privacy. According to Jasmin Melvin’s Reuter’s article, “Nearly two-thirds of Apple’s fiscal year 2011 net sales came from its iPhone, iPad and related products and services that rely on tracking a user’s exact location.” Daniel Castro, senior analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation says that “If Google got 65 percent less revenue than it got last year,” the company would be significantly upset.

Research conducted by OgilvyOne Worldwide in partnership with MarketTools complicates the ongoing tensions between user privacy rights and corporate ad revenues. The study reveals that 72% of US consumers are willing to share data, as long as they receive something valuable in return. The Sexy Little Numbers press release shares three types of value exchanges including rewards and monetary benefits, better service, and transparency and control in data usage, citing three emerging groups:

• The “Cash for Information” consumer: typically young professionals, 94% of whom will share information in exchange for monetary benefits;
• The “Privacy Cautious” consumer: typically older consumers, 41% of whom will share data such as their telephone number in exchange for better services. This number increases to nearly 50% among retired respondents;
• While 52% agreed that a cash reward was the most preferred exchange benefit, “Affluents” (those earning over $150k) were more interested in receiving exclusive deals/discounts on products & services (51%).

Sexy Little Numbers promises useful tips to harness the new privacy and data trends by, among other things, predicting the value of customers and potential customers using analytics like value spectrum and risk propensity.