In her first public appearance since becoming Chair of the FTC, Edith Ramirez made clear she was not going to be shy about using the Commission's authority to press digital companies on privacy.

Utopia's execs are attempting to change the way companies think about data by creating an enterprise data lifecycle management (EDLM) framework to manage data throughout its lifecycle, from creation and capture through management, maintenance, archiving and disposal.

In a thoughtful study, the World Economic Forum and Boston Consulting Group argue that existing data privacy interactions with consumers are obsolete and need to reflect the new realities of big data use cases and sharing.

As the U.S. heads into the travel season and marketers start thinking about targeting those on the go, eXelate releases data analyzing travel destinations. Where travelers go helps marketers to understand consumers' personalities through activities.

Device access to media offers both publishers and marketers something much more promising than just "content everywhere." We now get sequential access to users throughout the day.

Data will make behavior, rather than intent or interest, more important to marketing and advertising. I'm not referring to behavioral targeting or remarketing, but to how consumers interact and why they share things.

Buzztime, the network with more than 15,000 video gaming screens in bars and restaurants, finds that targeting people with the promise of more fun beats a simple discount offer any day.

The White House introduced social tools for the American people to provide feedback on the State of the Union address. Think of the data sitting behind the Twitter tweets and comments on Facebook and Google+.

By blurring the lines among desktop, tablet and mobile screens, Google is forcing a good but perhaps early conversation about targeting and valuing contexts.

Follow the data. Data highlights behavioral patterns. That's the mantra for 2013. Marketing have found most events are predictable using statistical analysis, even when it comes down to using word choice in comments and recommendations. Data will become the most critical driver of the information age, similar to oil in the industrial age, but many marketers are ill prepared to make decisions in real time.