Internet Privacy - Your Customers Demand It

These days our customers are demanding more and more in the way of Internet privacy and with todays statistics who can blame them?

Here are just a few scary figures for you:

Approximately 15 million Americans were victimized by some sort of identity-theft related fraud in the 12 months ending in mid-2006, according to a survey by Gartner, Inc. These statistics represent more than a 50 percent increase since 2003 when the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported 9.9 million American adult identity theft victims.

Consumers reported fraud losses totaling more than $1.1 billion.

According to the Gartner survey of 5,000 online U.S. adults in August 2006, the average loss was $3,257 in 2006, up from $1,408 in 2005. At the same time, the percentage of funds consumers managed to recover dropped from 87 percent in 2005 to 61 percent in 2006.

Credit card fraud was the most common form of reported identity theft constituting 25% of all reported frauds.

Have you ever filled out a form on the net and then for the next 6 months you are getting 100’s of SPAM e-mails a day?

I was looking for health insurance a few months ago. I went to one of those “compare prices here” sites. And I kid you not, before I had finished reading the confirmation e-mail, my phone was ringing…and it still has not stopped.

I am glad that I opened a separate e-mail account for just that purpose because I still get about 200 per day…this is months later. I know I was looking for health insurance but I am pretty sure they don’t sell you Viagra and Cialis or replica watches.

As I said, I set up an e-mail account that day with the express purpose of using it for that insurance site, so I know that it was them. Their site had a privacy policy too but it was just for show. Clearly they are not worried about repeat customers.

When a client purchases something from you, they are basically saying they trust you and your systems enough to keep their information safe. It is imperative that we, as merchants, take that trust seriously.

Here are a few ways in which to do so.

• Privacy Policy: Develop a privacy policy and use it
• Secure orders: This is a no brainer but always, always use a secure order form
• Limit access: Limit the access to a few employees as possible
• Permissions: Never, never, never share a client’s information with a 3rd party without permission
• Double Opt in: Use a double opt-in process for all mailings, that way you are as sure as you can be that you are in contact with the correct person
• Data Security: Protect data by firewalls, virus protection and any other means available to you to ensure that the data is secured
• Verify: If an order comes in that looks fishy, IE billing address is in AK and the shipping address is in Nigeria, take a moment out to call that person and do a little verification
• Trends/volume: If you have a company that sells eproducts and a new client comes through and purchases 10 products on the same day, this should throw up a flag for further investigation
• Secure updates: Allow your client a way to update the information in a secure fashion. Example: Have a secure credit card update form rather than requesting they e-mail it or use an unsure ticketing system
• Explain up front: If you use a local means of storing data (ie. on the customers PC, like cookies), explain why and how you use this information
• Enforce: Make sure you enforce this privacy policy

Again, this is information that most of you know, and probably already use, but all it takes is one bad experience to turn someone off of purchasing from Internet Marketers. You have enough challenges without adding sloppy security to the mix.

If you already do all of the items above, that is great. If not, take stock and see where you can improve your system.

- Meredith

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