Meta data can harm your business
When a customer emails you to ask a question, what's your first
instinct? Probably not to pick up the phone, but rather to hit
"reply." Shooting a quick email off with a pricing quote or
sending an answer to a question is now the mainstream. Email has
evolved into a the standard mass communications tool, a decade
ago, just 15% of adults in the US went online, today, 63% of the
population logs on to do a myriad of tasks from email to IM'ing,
to booking trip reservations (1) Documents aren't only
distributed within an organization, but also shared externally
to the press, customers, business partners and prospects from
the general public.
As a business entity, you and your employees probably do it
every day. You or your department creates proposals and send
them out to prospective clients. Ideally, each proposal is
custom made for each individual client or prospect.
In the crunch of daily business life, we look for time-saving
opportunities. Let's look at this scenario: To create a proposal
for client C on deadline, you may cut corners and rather than
making a document from scratch. To get the deliverable out to
client C on schedule, you cut and paste from last week's client
B package or edit the header and beginning body of client A's
proposal since clients A and C are in the same industry.
Your firm e-mails new client package out to the potential client
C. Client C accesses the proposal's metadata and sees that you
gave your current client A, a competitor, a much more favorable
bid, or sees previously deleted data provided to Client A. The
result on this unintended meta data discovery is a loss of
revenue from Clients A, B, and C.
The dilemma is that a small/medium business enterprise's digital
assets may reach an audience for whom it was not meant for.
Unintentional data sharing incidents unchecked are out of a
small or medium business enterprise's control, meta data isn't.
The problem of meta data is even more compounded in industries
like legal, medical and financial fields where monetary fines
are attached for revealing private information. Case litigation
costs can soar if certain client -lawyer information becomes
public. Patient treatment outcomes could be affected if when
medical records fall into non-clinician hands. An investor's
successful portfolio could be revealed when analysis information
like Microsoft Excel spreadsheets are accidentally distributed
in a brokerage firm to non-pertinent personnel.
Meta data information is data which describes another set of
data. It provides information about or documentation of other
data managed within an application or environment.(2) Many
software programs from Microsoft Office to Adobe CS's Version
Cue and Adobe Bridge captures meta data information to track
document use. Meta data describes how and when and by whom a
particular set of information was collected, and how the
information is formatted.
"Metadata is created in a variety of ways in Word documents. As
a result, there is no single method to remove all such content
from your documents."(3) Some of the meta data is benign, but in
the proposal time-crunch scenario and compliance scenarios, meta
data can financially cost.
Many businesses store their office collateral in Microsoft Word
documents. "Some metadata is easily accessible through the Word
user interface. Other metadata is only accessible through
extraordinary means, such as by opening a document in a
low-level binary file editor."(4) In Microsoft Word 2002, for
example, the following is the type of meta data that's collected
when a document begins its life:
Types of Meta Data in Word: Your name, Your initials ,
Your company or organization name, The name of your computer,
The name of the network server or hard disk where you saved the
document, Other file properties and summary information,
Non-visible portions of embedded OLE objects, The names of
previous document authors, Document revisions, Document
versions, Template information, Hidden text, Comments
"The problem is not that metadata is added to documents. The
problem is that it cannot be easily removed from documents.(5) "
There is no question that both client and businesses are wired
entities. The statistics show that the internet and email flood
our very existence, so much so that 54% of young people ages 12
to 24 weaned online said they would rather give up TV than the
internet.(6)
Immediate connectivity has brought personal space and distance
closer in both the private and business realms. As users of the
connected marketplace, we all run the risk of our digital assets
becoming part of the uncontrolled mass. Control of your business
enterprise's original intellectual property must be maintained
remain a viable competitor. A business can function online, so
long as it's done in a smart way.
By using digital rights management (DRM) software, a document's
author can prohibit his content from being forwarded, printed,
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edited, or copied. Users can also control the lifecycle of their
email and documents by setting access and expiration dates,
which will allow or prohibit access to content at a given time
and date.
Like encryption, DRM software can be difficult to use and is
generally expensive ranging between $5,000 and upwards of
$40,000. This pricing structure leaves the small/medium size
business enterprises without the mode of protection which large
enterprises invest in. Implementing digital asset management
(DAM) technologies shouldn't be a costly or arduous task.
In keeping with your right to do business safely and securely,
Essential Security Software feels you also should be able to do
so affordably. Taceo™ user licensing is priced for a smaller
number of users, ideal for the individual contractor or the
smaller business office, offering the same document control and
communication security.
The rights management provided by Essential Taceo gives people
the power to share their work without relinquishing control,
offering protection over their own intellectual property and the
right to profit from it. Encrypting and controlling access to
files can be a successful part of a company's compliance program
and way for it to remain relevant against its competitors.
End Notes:
- - - - - - - - - -
1.) Lee Rainie, John Horrigan, Report: Internet Evolution,
Chapter 4 "Internet: The Mainstreaming of Online Life." Pew
Internet Rearch 25 January 2005. http://www.pewinternet.org/ 59.
2.) definition from Dictionary.com
3.) Michael Silver, "Microsoft Office metadata: What you don't
see can hurt you," Tech Republic, 4 March 2003
http://techrepublic.com.com/
4.) Microsoft Support "How to Minimize Meta Data in Word 2002"
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290945
5.) Michael Silver, "Microsoft Office metadata: What you don't
see can hurt you," Tech Republic.
6.) Terry Heaton, Donata Communications reprinted from Edison
Media Research findings 26 March, 2004,
http://donatacom.com/archives/00000314.htm 4 October, 2005.
About the author:
Marilee Veniegas is an alumni of the University of
Washington she joined the Marketing team at Essential Security Software, Inc. in 2005.
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