A person signs up for a subscription to a newspaper's online service. The newspaper company, in the normal course of setting up the account, collects and stores information about the customer, including name, address and credit card number.

Then, in the normal course of providing its service, the newspaper company tracks which articles the customer reads and which advertising links she clicks on. After some time, the customer decides to cancel the service. This is no big deal; it happens all the time. However, not only does she want to stop using the service, she also wants her data back. In fact, she wants the data expunged -- not merely deleted, but really gone.

Such requests to leave no digital trace aren't common -- yet. They will be the norm in the future.

Having set up this scenario, my friend asked the Value Studio participants to assume roles representing four constituencies: IT, marketing, legal and corporate affairs. Faculty members of the IT Leadership Academy played the customer, the CEO of the newspaper company and the newspaper's board of directors.

The groups were given 10 minutes to discuss their strategies, after which they reported their suggested course of action to the CEO.