Major campaigns now have (or claim to have) any number of "big data" capabilities, from digital voter files to extensive email lists and targeted digital advertising using third party data. Collecting data is valuable and necessary to campaign efforts, but after collection comes action.

Online marketers extend a variety of privacy protection assurances to viewers of their content, typically bundled in "notice and consent" legalese. The marketer may promise to destroy personal data after a set period of time (right, Snapchat?), to anonymize personal identifiers, to limit if not refuse to share data with third parties, to be transparent about what types of data are collected, and so on. The format encourages customers to agree quickly to the terms without reading for comprehension so they can get to the next screen and start loading up their shopping cart icons with consumer goodies.

Thanks to the mass-market adoption of digital devices and a fragmenting media landscape, the viewing habits of the likely American voter are harder to predict than ever before. Now, the majority - more than 50% of us, in fact - fall into a category that presents a significant challenge to advertisers used to traditional media buying plans.