Marketing has to constantly adapt to stay relevant. That means not just being on top of the latest tools made possible by advanced technology but also the consumer protection regulations that have been put into place.
With people’s devices picking up on and often passively sharing so much personal data on users, apps had grown to become a source of valuable data on users. They offered insight not just into their habits on the screen but their real life movements as identified by their phone’s automatic location tracking.
Well, those days are over, or at least they should be for automatic opt-in for phone user locations. Tracking that kind of information without informed consent is definitely not allowed for members of the EU protected by GDPR or Californians protected by CCPA.
Don’t assume that everyone else is fair game, though. As we saw in Getting on board for data privacy legislation, the Consumer Online Privacy Rights Act (COPRA) introduced at the end of 2019 proposes to extend consumer protections measures beyond the California law.
One of the ways the privacy legislation extends protection is by stipulating that individuals are given the choice to opt in to data sharing rather than just being offered the option of opting out. A recent Apple update can help them with that.
Apple alert
As reported in Digiday, Apple’s iOS 13 update offers users alerts on apps that take in their location data. “The pop-up gives a user a chance to choose from the following options: allowing data collection at all times, or only when the app is open — or only one time.”
Steve Jobs would have appreciated his company’s advance of consumer consent. Back in 2010 Jobs summed up what it takes to protect data privacy this way at a D8 Conference:
“Privacy means people know what they’re signing up for, in plain English, and repeatedly. Ask them. Ask them every time. Make them tell you to stop asking them if they get tired of your asking them. Let them know precisely what you’re going to do with their data.” – Steve Jobs
He insisted that Apple’s operating system upheld that standing and had rejected many apps that would automatically upload user data to the cloud without full disclosure and permission. He added that if an app attempted to use location data on the iPhone without user permission, Apple itself would block its data collection ability.
Measurable effects
As the Apple update came out this past September, there are now measurable results that show a marked drop in location data sharing. Digiday cites Benoit Grouchko, who runs the ad tech business Teemo that creates software for apps to collect location data, that there has been a huge drop from close to 100% opt-in back in 2017 vs. about 50% once the phone alerts make people aware of the extent of their location sharing.
An even larger drop was noted within the first two months of the iOS update by location-verification business, Location Sciences. It found “80% of those users stopped all background tracking across their devices.,” reports Digiday.
The obvious result of this is that targeted marketing that depended on real-time location awareness is now off the table for brands. Their customers are less likely to let them know exactly when they are within a few feet of their store and likely to be lured in by a promotion made available right now. They also can’t use the tracking to figure out their commuting patterns or which places they visit.
The right attitude
While some marketers will undoubtedly mourn the loss of that data for targeting, what they have to realize is this: if the customer didn’t want that data used, they are not likely to be happy about receiving marketing messages that show their privacy is not respected.
The foundation of any relationship is mutual respect and trust. You don’t build that with your customer when you try to use information about them that they don’t want in your hands. Instead, brands have to work off the kind of data that customers are willing to share and predictive analytics that remain relevant without overstepping boundaries.