Online Marketers Embrace Privacy Standards
IT APPEARS THAT online marketers may have finally gotten the message and are starting to post privacy policies on their Web sites.
A draft study by a Georgetown University business professor found that 65.7% of Web sites constituting 98.8% of consumer Web traffic posted at least one type of privacy disclosure-either a privacy policy notice or an information practice statement. (An example of the latter would be a statement that credit card numbers are transmitted to a secure server.)
The draft of the Georgetown Internet Privacy Policy Survey, by Mary J. Culnan, also found that 12% of the sites in her sample that collect personal information address all basic fair information practices-notice, choice, access and security.
In addition, Culnan learned that 94% of the top 100 sites posted information practice statements, up from 71% last year.
The study was requested by the Federal Trade Commission and conducted with corporate funding by America Online, IBM, Microsoft, Time Warner, the Direct Marketing Association and others.
The results were released in May to the FTC and the study’s advisers. An electronic version will be available today at www.privacyalliance.org.
The numbers represent quite a change from the past. In a Web site survey last year, the FTC reported that only 14% posted any kind of information practice statement.
“Online firms deserve considerable credit for making progress over the last year,” FTC chairman Robert Pitofsky said in a statement. “There is a remarkable increase in the number of Web sites posting information about their privacy practices.”
“This demonstrates that the most successful businesses have recognized that privacy and profit go hand in hand on the Internet,” DMA president/CEO H. Robert Wientzen said in a statement.
Acxiom, Abacus Form an Alliance ACXION CORP. and Abacus Direct have agreed to a multiyear partnership aimed at creating products for customers of selected vertical industries.
Acxiom has started phasing out SmartBase, which competes with the Abacus Alliance database of catalog shoppers. Existing SmartBase customers will be transferred to the Alliance database. Abacus will also adopt Acxiom’s AcxiKey data management technology and link Abacus’ information on catalog consumers with AcxiKey demographic data.
