How Allowing ISPs to Sell Consumer Data May Affect Your Business
The House and the Senate passed a resolution to remove restrictions on ISPs who want to sell consumer data. It is expected that President Trump will sign the measure. If signed by the President, ISPs will gain the ability to do what edge providers, such as Google and social media websites, could do: collect user information and sell it to advertisers.
What Type of Data Is Collected?
Think about the last time you jumped onto Amazon.com and looked up a book or an item that you want to purchase. Maybe you decided to shop around or wait on the decision. As you go about your day and check your social media and look at other websites, you notice that there’s an ad for that exact thing that you were thinking about purchasing. Those ads are generated by third party applications or marketers based on your search history on edge providers. It’s based on cookies and your search history. This data isn’t considered sensitive data despite the fact that many people may search up sensitive subjects or items.
ISPs Will Have the Same Ability
With this resolution, ISPs will have the same ability to not just record what you’re doing online, but to sell that data to others. ISPs are excited for the change. It enables them to pursue another revenue stream aside from providing access to the Internet.
How This May Affect Your Business
The ability for ISPs to collect and sell data for marketing purposes may have affect your business in two distinct ways. First, it gives small businesses another avenue to collect target market data. Having this non-sensitive consumer data can help you develop better ads for your business. You could see an increase in potential clients and in conversions as your ad may be exposed to more people. Once this resolution goes into effect, you may need to do some research to find out how you can purchase the data and hire a third-party company who can develop an ad campaign around the information.
Second, you may begin to see more targeted ads while you’re working. If you get online to do research for a project, that data will be collected and sold. You could begin to see more ads related to items that you searched on.
What Can You Do to Help Consumers Cope with This Change?
Many people are upset about the resolution. Yet, it’s something that they already deal with. Not much will change for consumers at this time. The data is considered non-sensitive and is used for marketing purposes and not for the purpose of slowing down their connections.
One thing you can do to help consumers cope with this change is to include a disclaimer on your website that informs them that your site uses cookies in order to give them the best possible experience with your company. Being honest about why you collect data and what you do with it can help consumers be more at ease with the change.
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