268. IJRM. What Blockchain Can & Can’t Do.
June 1, 2023
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Today, we're speaking with Alex Marthews, an expert in blockchain technology and privacy. In this interview, we dive into the intersection of blockchain, privacy, and data ownership, unraveling the challenges and implications that arise from the use of blockchain in marketing and beyond.
Topics include:
Trust, Disintermediation, and Incentives:
Blockchain's potential to revolutionize industries and remove intermediaries sparks excitement, but the 'last mile' problem creates limits.
Privacy Implications in Marketing:
Delving into the world of marketing, we uncover concerns about data privacy and the potential for intrusive profiling.
The immutability of blockchain exacerbates these issues, as personal information becomes permanently exposed, making individuals wary of expressing their preferences.
Blockchain as a Tool in Context:
Evaluating the practicality of implementing blockchain, we discuss specific contexts where blockchain can be a valuable tool.
We delve into the considerations that firms must address, including privacy laws, long-term consequences, and the expense of handling privacy and persistence issues.
Click here for the Research Article
The Up Next podcast’s access to this content is courtesy of the International Journal of Research in Marketing, an international, double-blind peer-reviewed journal for marketing academics and practitioners. IJRM aims to contribute to the marketing discipline by providing high-quality, original research which advances marketing knowledge and techniques. As marketers increasingly draw on diverse and sophisticated methods, IJRM‘s target audience is comprised of marketing scholars, practitioners (e.g., marketing research and consulting professionals) and policymakers.
IJRM aims to be at the forefront of the marketing field with a particular emphasis on bringing timely ideas to market. The journal embraces innovative research with the potential to spur future research and influence practice. Hence, it welcomes contributions in various aspects of marketing. The editors, while accepting a wide array of scholarly contributions from different disciplinary approaches, especially encourage research that is novel, visionary or path breaking.
Alex Marthews is a dual American and British citizen, and runs the national civil liberties group "Restore The Fourth", focusing on the Fourth Amendment and limiting government surveillance. He has published empirical research on measuring the chilling effects from surveillance, and research into identity persistence on the blockchain. Alex has a master’s degree in public policy from UC Berkeley, and lives in Belmont, Massachusetts.
Catherine Tucker is the Sloan Distinguished Professor of Management and a Professor of Marketing at MIT Sloan. She is the faculty director of the EMBA program. She has also been the Chair of the MIT Sloan PhD Program.
Her research interests lie in how technology allows firms to use digital data and machine learning to improve performance, and in the challenges this poses for regulation. Tucker has particular expertise in online advertising, digital health, social media, and electronic privacy. Her research studies the interface between marketing, the economics of technology, and law.
She has received an NSF CAREER Award for her work on digital privacy, the Erin Anderson Award for an Emerging Female Marketing Scholar and Mentor, the Garfield Economic Impact Award for her work on electronic medical records, the Paul E. Green Award for contributions to the practice of Marketing Research, the William F. O'Dell Award for most significant, long-term contribution to Marketing, and the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science Long Term Impact Award for long-run impact on marketing.
She is a cofounder of the MIT Cryptoeconomics Lab which studies the applications of blockchain. She has been a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. She has testified to Congress regarding her work on digital privacy and algorithms, and presented her research to the OECD, World Bank, IMF and the ECJ.
Tucker is senior editor at Marketing Science. She has been coeditor at Quantitative Marketing and Economics and associate editor at Management Science, Marketing Science, and the Journal of Marketing Research. She is the codirector of the program on Digital Economics and Artificial Intelligence at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
She teaches MIT Sloan's course on Pricing and the EMBA course "Marketing Management for the Senior Executive." She has received the Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching as well as being voted "Teacher of the Year" at MIT Sloan.
She holds a PhD in economics from Stanford University and a BA from the University of Oxford. Follow & Learn More
International Journal of Research in Marketing
Alex Marthews
Restore the Fourth
Catherine Tucker