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Marketers Mucking up Data-Privacy Efforts

Study finds marketers, data-privacy specialists differ widely on what can be shared.

By Ellen Messmer

June 24, 2008 — Network World — Corporate data-privacy specialists think they’re influencing their organizations to safeguard customers’ sensitive personal information but marketers are often undercutting their efforts, according to a new survey.

A new Ponemon Institute survey of 713 marketers and 498 individuals responsible for privacy and data protection got vastly different answers from the two groups, which were asked the same questions related to e-mail marketing and other practices. The Ponemon Institute found that the two groups had different notions about what kind of customer personal data could be shared in marketing activities.

The marketers were far more willing to share information such as home address, telephone, date of birth, gender, e-mail address, credit card and Social Security numbers. And 44 percent of the marketing group surveyed admitted they believed their organizations weren’t in compliance with privacy regulations—whereas 84 percent of the privacy and data-protection professionals thought their businesses were.

The main conclusion to be drawn from the Ponemon Institute’s “2008 U.S. Study on Email Marketing Practices & Privacy,” says director Larry Ponemon, is that the marketers, who “are closer to the action” in business than the data-privacy folks, are confessing, “We’re getting away with murder.”

The data-privacy people in the organization are operating under the belief they’re doing something to help protect consumer data through policies and other efforts, Ponemon pointed out. But the reality is that the marketing side of the house is barreling ahead with its own ideas of what’s appropriate in terms of sharing personal data.

“While both groups believe that it is important for consumers and customers to trust the privacy commitments of organizations, marketers worry that complying with privacy regulations could hinder their ability to attract new customers,” the report states in its findings.

Perhaps not surprisingly, marketing and data-protection professionals don’t agree on the type of personal information that should be trusted to a third party. For instance, only 7 percent of data-privacy professionals said their organization shared Social Security numbers for marketing purposes, but 29 percent of marketers said they did. More than one-third of the marketers don’t limit the data they distribute to third parties, whereas 75 percent of the privacy professionals believe their organizations do limit the data to be shared, the report said.

According to the study, 71 percent of the privacy professionals said they believe their organizations are “respectful of consumers’ privacy rights,” but only 40 percent of marketers felt the same.

Ponemon adds another trend picked up by the answers to the survey questions is that companies that outsource marketing also experience a higher level of data breaches, but he says a lot more research needs to be done to understand exactly why that might be.

The survey was sponsored by StrongMail.

 

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