Front
Lines
by Kerry C. Stackpole, CAE
EMA President & CEO
(Originally published in Messaging Magazine, July/August
1999)
When it comes to e-mail these days, it seems there are only three concerns. Privacy. Privacy. Privacy. With the ever increasing volume of economic messaging transactions, the chorus of concern about the security and privacy of end-users is reaching a new crescendo. There’s much that can be done to calm the nervous condition of many who fear we are or will unwittingly turn over the entire contents of our personal lives in a few online e-commerce transactions. Of course, it’s not terribly encouraging when reports of Internet Service Providers, such as the one in Singapore scanning its customer’s computer systems while they’re online, make the news. Yet, it is highly instructive. Providers and end-users alike have a key role to play.
Here are some basics. Make sure your firm has a Privacy Policy for electronic communications. Make sure the policy is highly visible, well known and thoroughly disseminated. Remind everyone of its existence and remind them at regular intervals. The very nature of the technology makes it seem private. You and I know it’s not. Let’s make sure others do, too! (Shameless self-promotion…EMA has a terrific publication, The EMA Privacy Toolkit to help you along the way.)
Make sure your firm has a Privacy Policy for customers. Does your firm allow customers to "opt out" or "opt in" when it comes to information collection? Increasingly, research shows that customer communications offering the "opt in" methods are better received by consumers and are, in fact, more effective because the customer wants and expects to hear from you. Deleting message after unwanted message has become perceived as a real and annoying burden.
Post your Privacy Policy on your organization’s website. If you haven’t already done it, do it today. Why? Increasingly, posted privacy policies are becoming the means by which Congress and others measure the efficacy of industry’s ability to regulate itself. As consumers learn to use the new economic messaging medium we call e-commerce, complaints proliferate about poor service, unexplained or unintended release of personal information, and limited understanding of what’s being done with the information you ask consumers to provide. Post your organization’s Privacy Policy. Tell your customers how you’ll use the information, and when and how it will be used. Then let them decide if it’s okay. The marketplace that used to vote with its feet, now does so with a few keystrokes.
Privacy is a cherished right in America. The fourth amendment of the Bill of Rights is clear—"the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects…." Increasingly, Americans have willingly exchanged some privacy for certain protection or benefit. Airport searches and magnometers in federal buildings come immediately to mind, but insurance companies, credit cards, mortgages, certain forms of employment, and social security numbers for infants at birth routinely require us to share bits of information about ourselves. Increasingly, privacy advocates, media, and industry pundits are ratcheting up the volume of concern, catching the attention of state legislatures, federal agencies, and the Congress of the United States. It should be catching your attention too! MM