The privacy of your personal data is a growing concern as more of what we do every day is on computers and mobile devices. A Syracuse University Advertising professor wants to ease fears about data that’s gathered about you and what you can do.
Daniela Molta said there’s a lack of knowledge about what kind of data is collected through various types of online and mobile application activities. She understands that people have concerns.
“I think if we're talking about the appropriate fear level, I think it's okay for customers to have some curiosity and to think critically about, and that's where I would like people to go, as it relates to their data,” Molta said.
Molta spoke to us for our Newhouse Impact podcast.
She explained there are two main types of data collected. Personally identifiable information, or PII, is anything you shared with an online retailer, service provider or website, such as a doctor or bank. Those databanks have name, address, often account numbers and other information specific to you, the user, for the purchase or service provided.
The second is the data collected through your online habits, cookies on websites, and your preferences for shopping and information. Molta explained that third-party information is mostly anonymized, not identifiable back to an individual, and no name or address. This is widely used by businesses to target groups of people based on interests.
She understands how people don’t always take care to limit what is collected by companies and organizations.
“You have a lot of other things going on in your life and you just want to get to it as quickly as possible and sometimes businesses kind of put some friction between you and the ability to reject cookies for instance they make it a lot easier for you to accept the cookies and then to reject them,” Molta explained
And there can be layers to it that you might not think of when you, say, make a GrubHub order or something similar. “If you decide to sign in with Google or decide to sign in with Meta, you are giving the business, in this case GrubHub, the ability to share back a bunch of information with Meta,” which, she argued, allows Facebook and Instagram to target your interests, and GrubHub and its partners to message you.
Molta suggested taking a moment to think about what information you’re sharing. Most devices and websites have the ability to control the sharing of information, even though most people quickly click to place the order or get to the website content.
She said businesses could also play a role in being more transparent about data collection.
“It's really all in pursuit of trust. So, there's a ton of research that's been done. There's this, it's called the Edelman Trust Barometer,” Molta explained. “We know the more that a customer trusts you, the more they're going to buy from you, the more loyal they will be.”
Molta added there a few laws that can really regulate data collection, even though some states and foreign countries adopted such measures. But she said knowledge and better practices – on both ends – can make people more comfortable with data privacy.
