Ever wondered why the best discount offers are launched for shopping through mobile apps? Why not give the same deals on websites as well? Here’s the catch: Mobile apps allow companies the easiest way to harvest customer data ranging from phone identification, location, user details, friends list, to even the camera! This data can be put to good use by marketers for future sales but it also can be misused…
In the past, marketers had to rely on customers filling up forms and voluntarily providing information whence they made an online purchase or signed up for a service. In several cases customers declined to give information because they were perhaps not sure of data privacy and worried how the marketing companies might use their info.
However, with the mushrooming usage of smart phones and the unprecedented popularity of mobile apps, marketers have shifted their focus. Now they can access customer’s genuine data without any hassles and with the added advantage of info that the customer would never have shared voluntarily, such as contacts list and even the camera in some cases.
Ostensibly, the purpose of this data harvest is for business and for customizing the user experience, but the customers might want to ask: Is their privacy protected adequately by companies? And What if a data breach happens? Will the country’s laws punish the guilty? Will the marketing companies be held responsible?
Watch Video
Governments all over the world and particularly in India have been slow to adapt their laws to the rapidly evolving mobile apps. While technology advances at the speed of thought, governments have to cut through layers of bureaucracy and red tape to get a simple legislation passed. Its a phenomenal challenge nevertheless to keep pace with rapid changes in the smart phone ecosystem.
Leading e-commerce retailers conduct mega discount sales in which they clock revenues of several thousand crores in a single day, with millions of customers transacting! Such a huge online activity means that loads of sensitive data is floating around between several nodes and that actually is prone to a cyber attack.
Are the m-commerce companies, gaming companies, and other apps putting adequate safeguards to secure this priceless data? That’s a question for which we need an answer.
Also, several apps companies might be tempted to sell this data to third party marketers or unscrupulous advertisers. This can result in not only harassment but identity theft and online scams affecting thousands of customers.
Its high time that mobile application developers announce what kind of security measures they have put in place so that the customers might feel a assuaged. Secondly, government also needs to spell out at least the accountability in such cases so that companies could be persuaded to adopt stringent privacy protection measures…
Read More
Must Read
