5 Ways to Protect Online Privacy on Your Website

From customer management to predictive analysis, companies have more insight into their customers than ever before. You can track trends as they happen and build profiles of customers to predict their needs and respond to your offers.

There are many benefits to knowing your customer…as long as your customer wants you to know them. Misuse of customer data or intrusive marketing can have a negative effect on your brand, your reputation, and may even violate data privacy laws where your customer lives.

Before your marketing gets too personal, consider this cyber privacy checklist:

1. Know which Internet privacy laws apply to your service.
One of the biggest challenges for marketing today is keeping pace with changing online privacy requirements and standards. Data analytics, customer profiling and tracking technologies have created a complex data privacy landscape with new laws and requirements. Where your customers live and how old they are determines which online security and Internet privacy policies apply.

2. Regularly review data collection and use practices and privacy policies.
As technologies and partners change, it is important to review your data collection and data use practices to make sure they match your disclosed privacy policy. Changes to a website that include new partners or 3rd party code may add trackers that are not disclosed in your current privacy policy. A tracker audit identifies what’s on your website and who uses it to gather data.

3. Apply web privacy practices to all channels.
Online privacy extends beyond your website to all digital channels used to communicate with your customers: mobile apps and mobile sites, email, cloud services, social media and digital advertising. Your privacy practices should be accessible and transparent across all channels. Partners and cloud-based service providers should meet your high cyber privacy standards. It’s your reputation at risk if they don’t.

4. Build trust with transparent, easy to use online privacy controls.
Transparency and choice are cornerstones of a responsible online privacy practice. The complexity of today’s privacy issues is best served by tools for users to manage their own privacy. Privacy settings should give users a meaningful choice to opt-out of sharing on web sites, mobile apps, and even advertising that includes trackers.

5. Partner with online security and data privacy experts.
A comprehensive approach to data privacy helps protect your customers, preserve your reputation and avoid costly fines. TRUSTe provides the deep expertise and technology needed to protect and grow your business. Our comprehensive privacy suite helps you comply with data privacy regulations without sacrificing opportunities to get to know your customer better.

Download TRUSTe Whitepaper- Cultivating Comprehensive Data Privacy Throughout Your Organization: