PeoplePond VP Marketing on Trust and Privacy

July 30th, 2009

TRUSTe welcomes PeoplePond.com, the latest TRUSTe certified website! Congratulations! TRUSTe asked Joe Beaulaurier about the important of privacy and trust to his business.

1. Why is privacy important to PeoplePond?

Our customers’ privacy is a fundamental element in the design of our Web sites. We do everything we can to not only protect our users’ information from being accessed from people outside our company but we also do what we can to make it impossible for our own staff to see things such as user-created passwords. We do this not only as a service to our customers but to minimize our own exposure to the possibility of mishandling this information.

2. What else do you do to build trust with your customers?

Our customers include not only those people who have created profiles on PeoplePond but also those who are visiting them to find resources and experts they need. So we have recently implemented what we believe to be the first online identity verification service. Using this service, profile owners can prove to their visitors that they are who they say they are.  This minimizes the opportunity for spoofing identities on PeoplePond while increasing the value of the profiles for their audiences.

3. How does trust contribute to the bottom line and overall health of your company?

It is a safe bet that if we made it easy for profiles of spoofers to look just like a valid profile, our service wouldn’t be worth much to profile visitors. Additionally, by providing assurances, such as the TRUSTe Seal, to our customers that we will take good care of the information they entrust us with means we will more easily acquire customers with valuable personal brands, the very people we can do the most for. This will make them more successful which, in turn, will make PeoplePond more successful.

Interview with:

Joe Beaulaurier

VP, Marketing

PeoplePond, LLC

http://www.peoplepond.com/joebeaulaurier

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