ONLINE DATA PRIVACY 2

Online Data Privacy

As marketers get more adept at trolling blogs, social networks, and other Internet domains,
what happens to consumer privacy?
To become effective in the digital economy, marketers are increasingly relying on
harvesting and using consumer data. Some marketers use the laid down rules and only use
consumer data that customers provide to them. Others, however, extract the data that they need
without letting consumers know about. The proliferation of marketers that use the latter methods
has raised concerns among consumers about their privacy as many of them are not aware about
how their data is used (Trepte et al., 2015). Thus, increasing need for customer data has raised
serious privacy concerns consumers.
What can marketers and organizations do in order to ensure that vital consumer
information is private and that consumers feel comfortable visiting their websites and
participating in data research?
When customers feel that a site abuses or does not take the issue of data privacy seriously
they may lose trust in the site. It is, therefore, in the interest of marketers to make sure that
customers trust their sites. This can be done through enacting a policy that regulates the
collection, use, and protection of customer data and strictly adhering to that policy (Trepte et al.,
2015).
How much privacy do customers expect to have?
Customers expect that marketers only collect data that customers willingly give to them.
In addition, they also expect that marketers use that data only in the manner in which the

ONLINE DATA PRIVACY 3
marketers have promised to use (Trepte et al., 2015). Thus, generally customers have no
problems with data privacy as long marketers are request for non-sensitive data and use it in a
manner that respects the privacy of customers. Unauthorized collection and use of customer data
makes them develop distrust for online sites.
Does this vary based on the demographic profile of a customer?
Concerns about personal data privacy varies with the demographics of the customers.
Research has revealed that older customers are generally more concerned about their data
privacy than younger ones (Bergström, 2015). Additionally, it has also been shown that more
educated customers are less concerned about data privacy than less educated ones (Bergström,
2015).
What could be the customer response if they felt there was a lack of privacy on a site?
If a site lacks privacy customers may lose trust in it. This loss of trust may be expressed
through not visiting it altogether or not providing any data that the site may request from them
(Trepte et al., 2015).

ONLINE DATA PRIVACY 4

References

Bergström, A. (2015). Online privacy concerns: A broad approach to understanding the concerns
of different groups for different uses. Computers in Human Behavior, 53, 419-426.
Trepte, S., Teutsch, D., Masur, P. K., Eicher, C., Fischer, M., Hennhöfer, A., & Lind, F. (2015).
Do people know about privacy and data protection strategies? Towards the “Online
Privacy Literacy Scale”(OPLIS). In Reforming European data protection law (pp. 333-
365). Springer, Dordrecht.