By Tilman Harmeling, Strategy & Market Intelligence at Usercentrics
The backlash against Netflix over alleged unauthorised data collection practices is about far more than a single platform or privacy dispute. It signals a much bigger trend in how consumers evaluate digital brands – and how quickly trust can erode when people no longer understand how their data is being collected, shared, or used.
For years, platforms assumed users would trade personal data for convenience and entertainment without questioning the mechanics behind it. That bargain is now breaking down.
Consent is no longer just a legal safeguard buried inside terms and conditions. In an AI driven economy, it is becoming one of the core drivers of digital performance itself.
What consumers are increasingly questioning is not just individual incidents, but the wider digital model built around invisible tracking, behavioural profiling, and increasingly opaque data ecosystems.
And the cost of getting it wrong is no longer just regulatory: it’s commercial.
Why weak consent creates weak data
In an economy increasingly powered by AI, personalisation and predictive systems, the quality of consent directly shapes the quality of data feeding those systems. And weak consent provides weak data. That matters because there is now a growing disconnect between what users believe is happening to their data and what platforms are actually doing behind the scenes. Our research, conducted with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that 77% of consumers do not fully understand how their data is collected and used online.
This is no longer just a transparency issue. It is becoming a business problem. When users feel manipulated, confused or excluded, trust breaks down, data becomes less reliable, engagement becomes more fragile and the systems built on top of that data becomes less effective.
The irony is that many businesses still think performance is driven by collecting more data. In reality, the next generation of digital performance will depend on collecting better data – data users knowingly and confidently choose to share.
Consent is becoming a competitive advantage
That is why consent is shifting from a compliance requirement into a competitive advantage.
The brands winning long-term are increasingly the ones being clearer about how data is used, giving users more meaningful control, and reducing reliance on invisible tracking or aggressive profiling. In other words, restraint is becoming more strategic.
The Netflix controversy is a reminder that trust damage no longer stays confined to regulators or headlines. It increasingly shapes how consumers evaluate brands themselves.
This shift is most visible with Gen Z. Contrary to popular assumptions, younger consumers are not rejecting personalisation or refusing to share data. They are simply far more selective about who earns that access and under what conditions. In fact, our research shows that 41% of Gen Z consumers in the UK say they are willing to share personal data in exchange for faster, more personalised, or seamless online experiences.
Gen Z understands the value exchange better than previous generations. If sharing data improves experience, reduces friction, or increases relevance, they are willing to participate. But they expect transparency, clarity, and control in return. Trust is no longer assumed. It is negotiated.
The rise of “human” consent experiences
That expectation is already reshaping how leading digital products communicate consent. Instead of long legal disclaimers and abstract privacy language, brands are increasingly using shorter, more contextual, human language around data use.
Consent is becoming part of the product experience itself rather than a separate compliance layer bolted onto the side. The pressure becomes even more intense when children enter the picture.
Children expose the biggest weakness in the current digital model because many online systems were designed around adult assumptions while operating in environments heavily used by younger audiences. Platforms often rely on consent mechanisms that even adults struggle to understand, despite using systems optimised to maximise engagement and behavioural influence.
That creates a dangerous contradiction. Businesses cannot claim users are making fully informed choices while simultaneously designing systems intended to shape attention, behaviour, and decision-making as aggressively as possible. This is why regulators are increasingly moving beyond simple consent requirements and focusing instead on fairness, accountability, and platform design itself.
The debate is no longer just about whether data collection is technically permitted. It is about whether digital experiences built around extraction and optimisation can genuinely be considered trustworthy.
Performance will increasingly depend on trust
In an AI driven world, how a brand approaches consent has become a core driver of performance.
For brands and marketers, the implications are significant. The era of hyper-personalisation at any cost is ending. Not every interaction needs maximum tracking, profiling, or behavioural targeting. Designing experiences with fewer data dependencies and communicating data use more clearly, will increasingly become a competitive differentiator.
Trust will also depend less on promises and more on proof. Businesses that continue treating privacy as a legal checkbox rather than a product and brand decision risk falling behind. The companies that succeed in the next phase of the digital economy will not necessarily be the ones collecting the most data. They will be the ones users trust enough to share it with willingly.
