Sunday, November 2, 2014

In todays world, it seems that companies and consumers have a hard time finding a balance between personalization and privacy. Throughout the article, I found that the common theme was that consumers would be willing to provide their information to websites considering the company builds that trust with them. This trust is found by disclosing what information the company is taking and storing about their users, and how they plan to use this information. Today, there are also three different types of privacy attitudes: those who express extreme concern, those who are unconcerned, and those that lie somewhere in the middle (which is the majority of the people). It seems that marketers are having trouble finding this common ground of creating a personalized environment for their consumer without overstepping their boundaries. Technology has created a new world of concerns, but privacy seems to be on the forefront of many peoples minds. My question to companies and consumers is, even if the company wrote out a disclosure of how they are using our information would we take the time to read it? If we do take the time to read and understand what information is being taken from us, would that stop us form using a particular website? It is hard to say.

2 comments:

  1. Trust is a big factor when is come to our privacy of personal information and how it is used, but I don't see disclosure statements as a way of proving trustfulness. I admit I rarely read them and the ones I do read, most of the dialect is incomprehensible to the common user.
    I have to say I fall for the Security Symbol more then any other privacy filters out there. Whenever I see a lock I tend to put whenever information down they ask me for. This article was very enlightening about the issues with some of the "privacy filters" sites claim to put up.

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  2. I for one am guilty of never reading the privacy statements, I think that as consumers it is important for us to be aware of where our information is going. I think that marketers have over stepped their boundaries they know much more about us than we think, however, I do like personalization of websites it has made life simpler and saved us time from sifting through things that may not be relevant to us. Although i do not condone it I think our privacy being invaded is beneficial to us. I enjoyed your response

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