Forrester will publish a survey this week in which 62% of people say they would be “not at all likely” to repeat a purchase from a company that shared their personal information with a data broker, and that 37% of them have bailed on an online transaction due to something they read in a company’s terms of service. The study, which was commissioned by analytics firm Neustar, also suggests a growing familiarity with ad-blocking and other privacy tools. Here’s a chart describing 1,069 adults’ browser settings:

Forrester concludes that a growing awareness about companies’ use of consumer data will lead them to expect simpler, more graphical privacy policies. The research firm also argues that “misuse and abuse of data will impact profitability” as a result of fines and lost consumer trust. In presenting the study, analyst Fatemeh Khatibloo told reporters that privacy is “the next green movement.” In a series of recommendations, Forrester argues that companies should respond by “stress-testing” their data operations, and turn privacy policies into a marketing opportunity.

So what to make of all this? I confess I’m skeptical. First, given that millions of Americans still use dial-up service to get their internet, can we be sure that most of the country can even define “browser” let alone “ad block plug-in?” And, more significantly, will consumers really ditch companies over what they do with data? After all, Facebook remains pretty popular — even as it cuts data deals to find out what you bought at the local drugstore.

Even if privacy does become the new green movement, that could bring its own downside. Recall, for instance, the spate of “green-washing” that occurred as companies tried to jump on the eco-bandwagon. In the case of data, this may be happening already — popular image site Pinterest touted its “Do Not Track” feature on the same day it announced a plan to massively expand its data collection habits.

In response to these concerns, Neustar’s Chief Privacy Officer, Becky Burr, told me that there really is a bona fide privacy movement afoot. She says it’s driven not just by consumers, but by companies that fret about their regulatory exposure in the US and, especially, in Europe. This is a fair argument. It’s possible that Google, Apple and others will raise their data protection game — if for no other reason than to avoid the fate of companies like Nike or Shell, which (rightly or wrongly) came to be singled out in the 1990′s for the overall sins of their industries.

The Forrester study, which was conducted in March, will be released on Wednesday. It was based on a survey on 1,053 adults “online” (a sample that likely compromises a higher degree of privacy-conscious consumers.)

(Image by paintings via Shutterstock.)

A new study by Forrester Research claims that so-called “programmatic” buying or “real time bidding” will account for nearly 25 percent of online video ad purchases by next year. This mirrors what is going on in the world of display advertising where more big advertisers are using ad tech tools to serve ads to diverse audiences in real time.

The report, which was commissioned by SpotXchange (an online video exchange that has skin in the ad game), also says that premium publishers have been slower to adopt programmatic bidding, in part because they fear it will undercut the value of their inventory. The report predicts, however, that many of these hold-out publishers will change their position as brands get accustomed to programmatic buying and begin to demand it.

The impact of programmatic on video ad prices is debatable. People in the ad tech industry point out that automated ad buying is simply a tool — not a reflection of ad quality. By this reasoning, publishers can hold their pricing line if they wish while also ensuring that their space is available in real time when there is a surge in demand. Conversely, as the report points out, publishers remain wary that brands will use the tools (as they did for display advertising) to drive down prices.

Overall, the future of video prices in the short term may be determined less by ad tech tools than by more basic principles of supply and demand. On this front, the good news for publishers can be seen in this chart which shows online ad spending rising quickly:

Another recent report is even more optimistic — pegging the 2013 number at $4.1 billion.

The bad news, though, is that the word is out about video’s promise and more and more people are showing up to grab a slice of the pie. Ad industry sources told the Wall Street Journal last month that there is ”not enough to feed everybody.” The Journal reported that, despite brands beginning to reallocate their TV budgets, prices are already under pressure; $15 to $20 per thousand views (CPM’s) last year versus a CPM of $17 to $25 in 2011.

The Forrester report also predicts that video ad inventory will be become increasingly divided between private and public exchanges.

Jim Bankoff, Chairman and CEO, Vox Media

Data helps destroy containers, and that’s a good thing. Data creates new content and information experiences and helps bring an end to the notion of content silos, Betaworks’ John Borthwick said: “The moment you start thinking about it as information, you start to think less about the package and more about the users.” Forrester’s James McQuivey pointed out that it’s not just a “tablet or iPad world,” but an “everything world” — and millions of people are consuming content not on iPads or e-readers but on gaming systems like the Xbox 360.

Digital storytelling is a native art. Stories on the Internet are not a new form of magazine or newspaper stories, but a medium in their own right — just like radio or TV. Publishers should develop their platforms accordingly rather than just repurposing other print vehicles. When Wenner Media released Us Weekly on iPad for the first time, it figured out a way to enable the “passalong” that’s so popular with the magazine’s print edition. As Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff told us, George Lucas had to build a new story-telling platform called Lucasfilm so that he could tell the story of “Star Wars.” And don’t say blogging is dead: “That’s like saying creativity is dead, or personal expression is dead,” said WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg.

Om Malik interviews John Borthwick, founder and CEO, Betaworks.

Not all “media” are created equal. Union Square’s Fred Wilson and Betaworks’ John Borthwick gave a rude awakening to Big Media executives, urging them to give up control of their content — and even to stop calling it “content.” But declaring new digital networks victors over somewhat different traditional print and broadcast operators after simply labelling each “media” can sometimes seem counterproductive and insufficient: What’s being created now are entirely new kinds of information vehicles. The industry is truly “at the crossroads” suggested by the paidContent 2012 conference’s subtitle– but technologists and information producers may now be heading in different directions, as well as speaking different languages.

Publishers have to sell their brands directly to consumers. “Publishing companies need to understand that the thing [companies] like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other retailers really respect is a brand,” Pottermore CEO Charlie Redmayne said in an explanation of why those companies agreed to send customers directly to the Pottermore site to buy e-books. “If we’ve demonstrated anything, it’s the power of a brand,” he said, noting that over half of Pottermore’s e-book sales result from readers coming directly to the site instead of being referred there by the retailers. Not every brand is Harry Potter — but “need to understand that their role in the future is creating these brands,” Redmayne said.

It’s time to toss CPM as a yardstick for online advertising success. How can Facebook be so inept at advertising? Because it’s handing advertisers a sledgehammer not a scalpel. Betaworks’ Borthwick and GigaOM’s Om Malik say it’s time to discard old-fashioned display ads as the basic unit of online ad success. Instead, it’s time for advertisers to adapt their ads to the evolving nature of the internet itself. That means forgetting about CPMs and focusing on data and social dynamics. On a broader level, it means re-imagining basic precepts of advertising and product discovery in a world where Web pages are being eclipsed by new types of online discovery and interaction.

If you didn’t make it to the TimesCenter yesterday, you’ll find video of all yesterday’s panels here (registration required). And let us know your takeaways from the day in the comments.

The survey was conducted among book publishing executives at publishers across the U.S. that represent 74 percent of U.S. publishing revenues. Forrester will present the full results of the study at Digital Book World in NYC on January 24, but the initial findings are as follows:

– 82 percent of respondents are optimistic about the digital transition, down from 89 percent a year ago.

– 61 percent of respondents believe readers will be better off as a result of the digital transition, down from 74 percent in 2010.

– 60 percent of respondents believe more people will read than before, down from 66 percent in 2010.

– 47 percent of respondents believe people will read a greater number of books than before, down from 66 percent in 2010 — a 19 percent decrease.

“People are generally optimistic still, but that optimism is waning,” said Forrester’s James McQuivey. “Publishers have started to do the hard work of making the digital transition and they’re finding that it is, indeed, hard work.”

These initial findings don’t speculate on the reasons why publishers are increasingly bummed out, but a few thoughts: 2011 was a tough year, marked by the death of Borders; Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) also expanded hard into publishing. And as the digital transition continues, we’re seeing some statistics that suggest increasing digital sales are compensating for the decline in print sales–but other stats suggesting they aren’t. Combined, those factors–plus McQuivey’s point that the digital transition is hard work–may be weighing on respondents’ minds. An 82-percent “general” optimism rate is still pretty good, but it’s surprising to see how pessimistic publishers are about the companies where they actually work, and how much more pessimistic they are than they were last year.

I can’t think of an obvious reason why respondents are less likely to believe that people will read more books as a result of the digital transition and look forward to getting some more info on that point. Update: Digital Book World covers a few reasons here.

Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that it would launch its tablet-friendly version of Windows, Windows 8, sometime in 2012. Device makers who are reportedly signed on to make Windows 8 tablets include Dell as well as Nokia (NYSE: NOK) (itself pinning its OS strategy heavily on Microsoft’s star).

But 2012 may be too late: according to Forrester’s analysts, consumers who were once looking forward to the launch of a Windows tablet are losing interest. In Q1, 46 percent of consumers said they would most of all prefer Microsoft’s OS on a tablet; today, that number has come down to 25 percent. Apple, meanwhile, appears to have gained some more fanboys, increasing to 28 percent from 16 percent in the most-preferred platform standings.

The prominence of Apple is even more stark when you consider preferences based on actual devices, where the iPad zoomed ahead of the competition at 61 percent:

Bu the decline in consumer interest is not the only problem, says Forrester, which provides a laundry list of challenges that Microsoft faces in tablet game:

– It calls Microsoft a “fifth mover” in the tablet market, coming well after every other big player (and then some if you count Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) and its route to “forking” Android) has had a crack. Those who are still standing like Apple, Samsung and possibly even RIM will have launched their second or third-generation products by the time Microsoft finally sees its first tablets come out.

– Forrester notes also that the iPad and Apple have moved in on application development, and even enterprise use, areas where Microsoft with its cadre of developers should have been reigning supreme.

– The analysts also believe that Windows Phone 7, which currently languishes with seven percent market share in smartphones, will not be a boost, either: Microsoft will not be able to benefit from the stickiness of one in attracting people to the other, as Apple has done with its iPad. (The analysts do, however, point out that Nokia’s use of the platform could serve to boost that standing.)

Taking a litte step back here, it may be worth playing devil’s advocate for a moment.

Earlier this year, Nielsen noted that tablet penetration in the U.S. was at less than five percent. While that has probably moved on since May, considering that the U.S. is one of the biggest markets today for advanced mobile devices, it is probably safe to say that similar penetration, if not less, holds in other markets.

If you are of the opinion that tablets are a mainstream and not niche product longer term, this implies that there is still a very big market to play for, not just for Microsoft but for the many others making tablets already.

Although Forrester does rightfully point out that so far Apple has captured developers’ attention in terms of content development, that has not held back the launch of some recent tablets with innovative content plays of their own — namely the Kindle Fire from Amazon, which not only offers a lot of apps, media and other content to users, but has advanced the notion of how to offer these in a unified cloud-based service. And for a very low price, to boot.

If anything, what these factors seem to imply is that Microsoft still has an opportunity, but the gauntlet is now down for whether they and their device partners will be able to deliver on innovative, price-sensitive products to meet it.

Why is Forrester so bullish on Amazon? It’s the etailer’s “willingness to sell hardware at a loss combined with the strength of its brand, content, cloud infrastructure, and commerce assets,” Forrester analyst Sarah Rottman Epps writes.

Here are the company’s predictions, from the blog post previewing the report:

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) to prepare for war. Apple sells software and services, but the lion’s share of Apple’s revenue still comes from hardware, which makes it vulnerable to a company, such as Amazon, that isn’t seeking profit from hardware sales. Amazon and Apple’s relationship, already fraught with Apple’s policy changes on content sales, will become even more strained.

Android OEMs to seek Amazon as a platform partner. We see potential for Amazon not only to launch its own hardware as an “Amazon tablet” but also to be a platform for other OEMs, layering Amazon’s software and services over Android to provide a richer customer experience. In a year from now, we could see a range of “Amazon tablets” made by different hardware manufacturers.

Software, media, retail, banks, and others to scramble to build Android tablet apps. So far, product strategists across industries have invested in iPad apps but have held back from creating Android tablet apps: Apple claims 100,000 custom-built iPad apps, while Google’s Honeycomb platform has attracted fewer than 300 apps. If Amazon’s Android-based tablet sells in the millions, Android will suddenly appear much more attractive to developers who have taken a wait-and-see approach.

The bottom line, Forrester says, is that with a sub-$300 price point, an Amazon tablet would see massive sales and could be the tipping point for Android to become a full-fledged iOS competitor.

But that’s not entirely the case in Europe, it seems.

There, Apple will take a mere 70 percent of the market this year, with competitors gaining a bit of advantage because of Apple’s smaller retail presence, and slightly less lionized reputation in the region.

A 70 percent market domination in Europe may not sound much more encouraging than an 80 percent market share in the U.S., but Europe itself is still shaping up to be a key battle ground simply for its size. In 2011, Forrester believes that Europe will account for one-third of all consumer tablet sales worldwide, making it the second-largest regional market in the world. Overall, the researchers believe that 48.2 million tablets will be shifted this year. In addition to 30 percent in the EMEA region, 50 percent of sales will be in the U.S., 15 percent will go to Asia Pacific, and 5 percent will be sold in Latin America.

Retail muscle. One of the key reasons for Apple’s reduced proportion will be because of its retail presence. Forrester points out that while the U.S. has 238 physical Apple stores, with another 19 in Canada, there are only 52 across all of Europe, with more than half of those (30) concentrated in the UK. Some countries like Poland even lack online stores, let alone physical retail shops.

But while Apple may not be as strong in retail, there is another group that is: mobile operators. They not only sell devices like the Samsung Galaxy Tab at big subsidies bundled with network contracts, but some have also started to partner with OEMs to offer own-branded devices, such as the Orange Tablet. While all of these operators, of course, also sell the iPad (and sometimes in its own hallowed space), the iPad is nevertheless competing for shelf space more directly with these other products.

Untapped market. Forrester conducted an online survey of nearly 14,000 people across France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the UK. What it looks like the researchers found was that the market is still very small — in France, for example, tablet penetration is a measly two percent — but that the opportunity, going on customer intent, is a pretty good one, with between 10 and 14 percent of respondents saying they would like to get tablets:

Lingering problems. The challenges in Europe, as outlined by Forrester, are not really that much different from those in the rest of the world. Chief among them is price, with competing tablets selling for upwards of €400 ($570). While this is the same price as that of an iPad 2, these products, most of them built on Android, significantly lack enough cache to compete at that point. Retailers think typical prices should instead be between €150 and €300, notes Forrester. That’s before payments for 3G contracts are factored in.

Add to this the current economic climate, which will be more of a force as tablets move beyond higher-earning, early adopters and look for customers in the mass market. Forrester notes that in Europe, the tablet market is skewed to younger people, who tend to also be in lower income brackets.

There is also the issue of supply, with the natural disasters in Japan affecting the rate of manufacturing and the prices for components.

What Forrester author Sarah Rotman Epps pointedly does not name in her research are potential marketshare winners, be it Samsung or RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) or Motorola (NYSE: MMI). What she does note is that low-cost Asian players (for example Huawei, ZTE or someone with no profile at all) could come in not on the strength of their brands, but on low pricing on decent products. That effectively means the market is still wide open with no clear and obvious challenger making a play yet for that remaining 30 percent that Apple will not manage to get.

While our usage data suggests incomplete adoption, consumers will soon embrace these services. Now that most new smartphones are shipping with GPS support and that Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and Nokia (NYSE: NOK) offer maps and navigation services for free, we expect a majority of consumers to use these services in the coming years. As of May 2011, there were more than 200 million mobile installations of Google Maps, and the service is used 40 percent of the time via consumers’ smartphones.

In fact, it does not really matter. Why? Location is no longer a service like maps or navigation, but increasingly an enabler of new product experiences. In a nutshell, the very notion of location-based services doesn’t not mean much anymore as I outline in the new Forrester report, “Mobile Location Becomes Invisible:“

–Location and maps are increasingly becoming features of new mobile products and services

–Location will happen automatically, behind the scenes. Think about the automatic weather update on your home screen widget. These adjustments happen automatically and, from a user perspective, invisibly. A growing number of applications will use geospatial information — without necessarily generating a map.

–Relevancy of local data will improve quickly. The era of basic point of interest (POI) information is over. This is no longer about just the address and the business name of a local shop. Enriching content with more accurate information on opening hours, real-time data (traffic information, coupons and promotions, etc.), product data, brand data, dynamic (review and promotion) data, and inventory data will deliver greater consumer benefits.

–New algorithms will bridge the physical and digital worlds. Coupling more accurate local data with user context and other sources of information will enable developers to create new algorithms bridging offline and online worlds.

–Such a new model, linking consumer behaviors with local data, will foster the development of crowdsourcing and predictive analysis. Think about predicting traffic congestion or air quality monitoring. Moving forward, these new algorithms will have far-reaching consequences far beyond mobile. There is tremendous value in knowing not just where customers are at a given moment of time but also where they are going and who they are in an aggregated and anonymous way.

Consumer product strategists should think beyond location alone but should couple this feature–which will be increasingly accurate, particularly indoors–with other data sources, such as user context and past behaviors.

However, invisibility will also raise privacy and identity fears. This will raise growing concerns about risks to lose personal information or to share location information with people and organizations you don’t want to have it.

I was not surprised to receive feedback from my contacts in Europe after publishing my previous post “The Future Of Mobile Is User-Context” where I mentioned that, in the long run, consumers will voluntarily give up privacy in exchange for the benefits of mobile convenience. Several people reached out to me directly saying this is a scary vision and that European consumers were way too concerned about their privacy to even think about “bargaining” it (in their own words).

So let me clarify a few points.

–First of all, I think the notion of privacy is interpreted very differently in different regions of the world. There is huge affect associated to it for political, historical and cultural reasons.

–Secondly, overcoming privacy concerns will not happen overnight. It will take time and will only happen if 1) consumers are in control 2) services delivered are really more personalized and convenient and 3) if a new ecosystem of trusted aggregators of data emerges.

–Thirdly, and on a more personal standpoint, I agree citizens should really care about this and make sure regulators have the resources they need to play their watchdog role.

Users need to be convinced that they can control their privacy whenever they want, regardless of whether they face a real risk or only think they do. They should also be able to: 1) choose the degree of personal information they share with their different social contacts; 2) contact their service providers to find out more about their privacy policies; 3) be systematically informed about how third parties will use their identity information; and 4) have the ability opt out at any time.

Thomas Husson is a Principal Analyst at Forrester Research serving Consumer Product Strategy professionals. Follow him on Twitter at @thomas_husson

This article originally appeared in Forrester.

About half of all tablet owners prefer using that device to shop as opposed to their smartphone, Forrester said Monday. Smartphones have changed the way that retailers think about selling their wares because they can be used in the store to augment the experience, but tablets are different: 80 percent of those surveyed by Forrester use their tablets most often in their living rooms or family rooms. That’s both good and bad for retailers, in that shopping experiences built for the larger tablet screen have the ability to draw new customers and convince old customers to spend more, but creates yet another potential case of app fatigue for mobile developers at those retailers.

Forty-seven percent of tablet users have bought something online using the device, according to Forrester. Of that group, just 44 percent said they weren’t frustrated by the experience, with most cases of frustration coming from the limitations of the tablet as compared to the PC. But the tablet offers the notion of “flippability,” Forrester said, or a browsing experience akin to flipping through the pages of a catalog. Retailers who figure out how to best promote their products for this experience could be set to capture new business.

But there’s still a long way to go before investing in tablets makes sense on a broad scale: only 9 percent of online shoppers have bought a tablet. Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) has sold over 25 million iPads to date, and Android vendors perhaps a few million more, but that’s a drop in the bucket next to the hundreds of millions of smartphones sold every year.

Forrester wonders, however, if Amazon’s entry into the tablet market could have a pronounced effect on the online shopping experience via the tablet. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) building significant hooks into its enormous online store to make it very easy for its customers to browse and purchase new products, and that might be hard for Apple or other Android vendors to duplicate.

Indeed, the fancy features embedded in mobile phones such as GPS and NFC (near-field communications) will become common, while new sensors like barometers will reveal more about the user’s environment. The phones will also act as modems, relaying or interpreting information from other machines or from attachments with sensors. They will offer new information–ranging from a consumer’s altitude, speed, temperature, and surrounding light levels to his orientation. Coupled with improvements in multi-core processors and HD media technologies, motion, voice, and touch will redefine the user interface.

For consumer product strategy professionals, this experience changes what it is possible to do on mobile devices.

In a few years, mobile will be divorced from the PC. While a mobile device may have the ability to act like a PC, it has the potential to do much, much more. For example, sensors and other advancements will detect heart rates, analyze breath for alcohol content, and assist navigation in high-rise buildings or on mountains. This information will open up new product opportunities. Product strategists must step into the leadership role, driving the development of user-context-based products. Increasingly, voice and motion will control devices and applications. There will be an entirely new generation of products and services delivered on mobile platforms that will not originate online – these new services will have the best opportunity to incorporate new features, as they will be designed with mobile in mind.

At the end of the day, who knows you best? Your mobile phone! Why?

Because it will become the device you use to interact with the world around you–your hotel room, your shopping cart, your TV, your fitness plan, your bank, your parking meter, your refrigerator, your car, your running shoes, and many other aspects of your life. You won’t be able to keep anything secret from your mobile phone.

Of course, this will raise privacy fears. But we believe that, in the long run, consumers will voluntarily give up privacy in exchange for the benefits of mobile convenience: provided that the contextual information collected about consumers delivers highly personalized experiences that they see as too convenient to pass up.

We believe that consumers will “walk through” their own personal Internet experience. What does this mean? Consumers will receive more and more individualized content based on their current context. The Internet will no longer be just a “pull” mechanism, with consumers choosing to access their content in a fixed place; it will become a push-based approach in which information is automatically updated and personalized to match their past behavior and their real-time environment. As the remote control of our daily personal lives, the mobile phone will become both an enabler and recipient of merged physical and digital experiences.

That’s why we believe the future of mobile is the user context.

Building highly contextual experiences is a journey.

Thomas Husson is a Principal Analyst at Forrester Research serving Consumer Product Strategy professionals. He blogs at http://blogs.forrester.com/thomas_husson A preview of the report can be found here.

This article originally appeared in Forrester.