Consumer privacy and online marketing: Bringing the human back into the picture

Abstract

This paper investigates the possible technological solutions to consumer concerns over privacy and online marketing. It is not about how consumers can "protect" themselves from online marketers; rather, it investigates how the apparent conflict between consumers and marketers can be resolved. Based around an online survey, it finds that technologies that facilitate human interaction in e-commerce environments might providea solution. Technologies such as chat facilities, online telephone calls, and simulated sales assistants offer an opportunity to re-establish trust. They provide all of the data gathering capabilities of traditional web technologies but with enough anonymity to allay consumers 'fears. They can bring a sense of the "real" world to the "virtual" world and represent the "remembering" of a consumer's details as a less alien concept. © 2001 by Springer Science+Business Media New York.