How Privacy Concerns About Online Data Collection Overcome

Good selection, a wide range of compelling copy and still work as well today as they did more than 30 a few years ago when I started my career in direct marketing. It has not changed much.

What has changed is our ability to our audience.

As recently as the mid-1990s, direct mail was the only way to reach customers one by one, but new technologies online quickly changed that.

Today, the online tracking technologies to collect mountains of demographic and behavioral change how their marketing messages to consumers.

By taking these large databases of information online and checking the information with data collected is not available because the warranty cards, marriage and birth records, magazine subscriptions, public records, purchase histories, etc., marketers can now use statistics analysis to make assumptions about the likelihood of a prospect or customer to respond to a specific offering.

For marketing, this means that you have the money to advertise effectively. For consumers, this can result in custom surf the web with free content and relevant ads to the personal interests of the individual.

Yet much of the collected information to consumers surfing the web is collected without the knowledge of the person. And that's the problem.

Once online data collection is limited to the "cookie" files included people visited websites. But new tools are scanning what people do on a web page and in real time, the user location, income, business interests and even medical conditions access.

Advertisers say they do not violate the privacy of a person, because of data to identify person’s name. Additionally, using the collected data, they give users a better Internet experience by providing lists and information that are most relevant to consumer interests.

But there is enough concern about protecting the online privacy, that Congress is currently monitoring new laws to consider online data limit. And the Federal Trade Commission is preparing new guidelines for industry confidentiality.

To overcome the concerns of consumers, the data collectors online, and merchants who use their services, do three things:

Inform consumers about the opportunities they have with the security of their browser.

Tell the consumer at the forefront not deeply buried in a privacy statement that no one reads that the company wants to present the most relevant content and that it requires a cookie on your computer. Clearly explain how the cookie functions, what information it collects and how that information will be shared.

Make it easy for consumers to withdraw if they do not want to participate in online of your business data collection.

Just as importantly, to help consumers understand the considerations of the data. In exchange for information about how the person surfing the Internet information that is not linked to his name, the consumer gets free and valuable content and commercial messages relevant to their interests.

The success of online advertising direct mail type is built on trust.

And if online advertisers and consumers recognize that they have common interests, presentation and receipt of relevant information, we will find that the privacy concerns about data collection can be overcome as easy as saying the truth.