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• What Is Data Misuse & How to Prevent It ? (With Examples)

  13 mai 2024, par Erin

  Your data is everywhere. Every time you sign up for an email list, log in to Facebook or download a free app onto your smartphone, your data is being taken.

  This can scare customers and users who fear their data will be misused.

  While data can be a powerful asset for your business, it’s important you manage it well, or you could be in over your head.

  In this guide, we break down what data misuse is, what the different types are, some examples of major data misuse and how you can prevent it so you can grow your brand sustainably.

  What is data misuse ?

  Data is a good thing.

  It helps analysts and marketers understand their customers better so they can serve them relevant information, products and services to improve their lives.

  But it can quickly become a bad thing for both the customers and business owners when it’s mishandled and misused.

  

  Data misuse is when a business uses data outside of the agreed-upon terms. When companies collect data, they need to legally communicate how that data is being used. 

  Who or what determines when data is being misused ?

  Several bodies :

  • User agreements
  • Data privacy laws
  • Corporate policies
  • Industry regulations

  There are certain laws and regulations around how you can collect and use data. Failure to comply with these guidelines and rules can result in several consequences, including legal action.

  Keep reading to discover the different types of data misuse and how to prevent it.

  3 types of data misuse

  There are a few different types of data misuse.

  If you fail to understand them, you could face penalties, legal trouble and a poor brand reputation.

  

  1. Commingling

  When you collect data, you need to ensure you’re using it for the right purpose. Commingling is when an organisation collects data from a specific audience for a specific reason but then uses the data for another purpose.

  One example of commingling is if a company shares sensitive customer data with another company. In many cases, sister companies will share data even if the terms of the data collection didn’t include that clause.

  Another example is if someone collects data for academic purposes like research but then uses the data later on for marketing purposes to drive business growth in a for-profit company.

  In either case, the company went wrong by not being clear on what the data would be used for. You must communicate with your audience exactly how the data will be used.

  2. Personal benefit

  The second common way data is misused in the workplace is through “personal benefit.” This is when someone with access to data abuses it for their own gain.

  The most common example of personal benefit data muse is when an employee misuses internal data.

  While this may sound like each instance of data misuse is caused by malicious intent, that’s not always the case. Data misuse can still exist even if an employee didn’t have any harmful intent behind their actions. 

  One of the most common examples is when an employee mistakenly moves data from a company device to personal devices for easier access.

  3. Ambiguity

  As mentioned above, when discussing commingling, a company must only use data how they say they will use it when they collect it.

  A company can misuse data when they’re unclear on how the data is used. Ambiguity is when a company fails to disclose how user data is being collected and used.

  This means communicating poorly on how the data will be used can be wrong and lead to misuse.

  One of the most common ways this happens is when a company doesn’t know how to use the data, so they can’t give a specific reason. However, this is still considered misuse, as companies need to disclose exactly how they will use the data they collect from their customers.

  Laws on data misuse you need to follow

  Data misuse can lead to poor reputations and penalties from big tech companies. For example, if you step outside social media platforms’ guidelines, you could be suspended, banned or shadowbanned.

  But what’s even more important is certain types of data misuse could mean you’re breaking laws worldwide. Here are some laws on data misuse you need to follow to avoid legal trouble :

  General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

  The GDPR, or General Data Protection Regulation, is a law within the European Union (EU) that went into effect in 2018.

  The GDPR was implemented to set a standard and improve data protection in Europe. It was also established to increase accountability and transparency for data breaches within businesses and organisations.

  The purpose of the GDPR is to protect residents within the European Union.

  The penalties for breaking GDPR laws are fines up to 20 million Euros or 4% of global revenues (whatever the higher amount is).

  The GDPR doesn’t just affect companies in Europe. You can break the GDPR’s laws regardless of where your organisation is located worldwide. As long as your company collects, processes or uses the personal data of any EU resident, you’re subject to the GDPR’s rules.

  If you want to track user data to grow your business, you need to ensure you’re following international data laws. Tools like Matomo—the world’s leading privacy-friendly web analytics solution—can help you achieve GDPR compliance and maintain it.

  With Matomo, you can confidently enhance your website’s performance, knowing that you’re adhering to data protection laws. 

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

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  California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)

  The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is another important data law companies worldwide must follow.

  Like GDPR, the CCPA is a data privacy law established to protect residents of a certain region — in this case, residents of California in the United States.

  The CCPA was implemented in 2020, and businesses worldwide can be penalised for breaking the regulations. For example, if you’re found violating the CCPA, you could be fined $7,500 for each intentional violation.

  If you have unintentional violations, you could still be fined, but at a lesser fee of $2,500.

  The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA)

  If your business is located within the United States, then you’re subject to a federal law implemented in 1999 called The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLB Act or GLBA).

  The GLBA is also known as the Financial Modernization Act of 1999. Its purpose is to control the way American financial institutions handle consumer data. 

  In the GLBA, there are three sections :

  1. The Financial Privacy Rule : regulates the collection and disclosure of private financial data.
  2. Safeguards Rule : Financial institutions must establish security programs to protect financial data.
  3. Pretexting Provisions : Prohibits accessing private data using false pretences.

  The GLBA also requires financial institutions in the U.S. to give their customers written privacy policy communications that explain their data-sharing practices.

  4 examples of data misuse in real life

  If you want to see what data misuse looks like in real life, look no further.

  Big tech is central to some of the biggest data misuses and scandals.

  

  Here are a few examples of data misuse in real life you should take note of to avoid a similar scenario :

  1. Facebook election interference

  One of history’s most famous examples of data misuse is the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018.

  During the 2018 U.S. midterm elections, Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm, acquired personal data from Facebook users that was said to have been collected for academic research.

  Instead, Cambridge Analytica used data from roughly 87 million Facebook users. 

  This is a prime example of commingling.

  The result ? Cambridge Analytica was left bankrupt and dissolved, and Facebook was fined $5 billion by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

  2. Uber “God View” tracking

  Another big tech company, Uber, was caught misusing data a decade ago. 

  Why ?

  Uber implemented a new feature for its employees in 2014 called “God View.”

  The tool enabled Uber employees to track riders using their app. The problem was that they were watching them without the users’ permission. “God View” lets Uber spy on their riders to see their movements and locations.

  The FTC ended up slapping them with a major lawsuit, and as part of their settlement agreement, Uber agreed to have an outside firm audit their privacy practices between 2014 and 2034.

  

  3. Twitter targeted ads overstep

  In 2019, Twitter was found guilty of allowing advertisers to access its users’ personal data to improve advertisement targeting.

  Advertisers were given access to user email addresses and phone numbers without explicit permission from the users. The result was that Twitter ad buyers could use this contact information to cross-reference with Twitter’s data to serve ads to them.

  Twitter stated that the data leak was an internal error. 

  4. Google location tracking

  In 2020, Google was found guilty of not explicitly disclosing how it’s using its users’ personal data, which is an example of ambiguity.

  The result ?

  The French data protection authority fined Google $57 million.

  8 ways to prevent data misuse in your company

  Now that you know the dangers of data misuse and its associated penalties, it’s time to understand how you can prevent it in your company.

  

  Here are eight ways you can prevent data misuse :

  1. Track data with an ethical web analytics solution

  You can’t get by in today’s business world without tracking data. The question is whether you’re tracking it safely or not.

  If you want to ensure you aren’t getting into legal trouble with data misuse, then you need to use an ethical web analytics solution like Matomo.

  With it, you can track and improve your website performance while remaining GDPR-compliant and respecting user privacy. Unlike other web analytics solutions that monetise your data and auction it off to advertisers, with Matomo, you own your data.

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

  Start for free

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  2. Don’t share data with big tech

  As the data misuse examples above show, big tech companies often violate data privacy laws.

  And while most of these companies, like Google, appear to be convenient, they’re often inconvenient (and much worse), especially regarding data leaks, privacy breaches and the sale of your data to advertisers.

  Have you ever heard the phrase : “You are the product ?” When it comes to big tech, chances are if you’re getting it for free, you (and your data) are the products they’re selling.

  The best way to stop sharing data with big tech is to stop using platforms like Google. For more ideas on different Google product alternatives, check out this list of Google alternatives.

  3. Identity verification 

  Data misuse typically isn’t a company-wide ploy. Often, it’s the lack of security structure and systems within your company. 

  An important place to start is to ensure proper identity verification for anyone with access to your data.

  4. Access management

  After establishing identity verification, you should ensure you have proper access management set up. For example, you should only give specific access to specific roles in your company to prevent data misuse.

  5. Activity logs and monitoring

  One way to track data misuse or breaches is by setting up activity logs to ensure you can see who is accessing certain types of data and when they’re accessing it.

  You should ensure you have a team dedicated to continuously monitoring these logs to catch anything quickly.

  6. Behaviour alerts 

  While manually monitoring data is important, it’s also good to set up automatic alerts if there is unusual activity around your data centres. You should set up behaviour alerts and notifications in case threats or compromising events occur.

  7. Onboarding, training, education

  One way to ensure quality data management is to keep your employees up to speed on data security. You should ensure data security is a part of your employee onboarding. Also, you should have regular training and education to keep people informed on protecting company and customer data.

  8. Create data protocols and processes 

  To ensure long-term data security, you should establish data protocols and processes. 

  To protect your user data, set up rules and systems within your organisation that people can reference and follow continuously to prevent data misuse.

  Leverage data ethically with Matomo

  Data is everything in business.

  But it’s not something to be taken lightly. Mishandling user data can break customer trust, lead to penalties from organisations and even create legal trouble and massive fines.

  You should only use privacy-first tools to ensure you’re handling data responsibly.

  Matomo is a privacy-friendly web analytics tool that collects, stores and tracks data across your website without breaking privacy laws.

  With over 1 million websites using Matomo, you can track and improve website performance with :

  • Accurate data (no data sampling)
  • Privacy-friendly and compliant with privacy regulations like GDPR, CCPA and more
  • Advanced features like heatmaps, session recordings, A/B testing and more

  Try Matomo free for 21-days. No credit card required.

  Try Matomo for Free

  21 day free trial. No credit card required.

  
  

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• How to Measure Marketing Effectiveness : A Step-by-Step Guide

  22 février 2024, par Erin

  Are you struggling to prove that your marketing efforts are having a measurable impact on your company’s performance ? We get it. 

  You would think that digital marketing would make it easier to track the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. But in many ways, it’s harder than ever. With so many channels and strategies competing against each other, it can feel impossible to pin down the campaign that caused a conversion. 

  That leaves you in a tricky spot as a marketing manager. It can be hard to know which campaigns to persevere with and harder still to prove your worth to stakeholders. 

  Thankfully, there are several strategies you can use to measure the success of your campaigns and put a value on your efforts. So, if you want to learn how you can measure the effectiveness of your marketing, improve the ROI of your efforts and prove your value as an employee, read on. 

  What is marketing effectiveness ?

  Marketing effectiveness measures how successful a marketing strategy or campaign is and the extent to which it achieves goals and business objectives.

  

  It’s a growing concern for brands, with research showing that 61.2% say measuring marketing effectiveness has become a more prominent factor in decision-making over the last three years. In other words, it’s becoming critical for marketers to know how to measure their effectiveness. 

  But it’s getting harder to do so. A combination of factors, including channel fragmentation, increasingly convoluted customer journeys, and the deprecation of third-party cookies, makes it hard for marketing teams to measure marketing performance. 

  Why you need to measure marketing effectiveness

  Imagine ploughing thousands of dollars into a campaign and not being confident that your efforts bore fruit. It’s unthinkable, right ? If you care about optimising campaigns and improving your worth as a marketer, measuring marketing effectiveness is necessary. 

  

  Optimise marketing campaigns

  Do you know how effectively each campaign generates conversions and drives revenue ? No ? Then, you need to measure marketing effectiveness.

  Doing so could also shine a light on ways to improve your campaigns. One paid ad campaign may suffer from a poor return on ad spend caused by high CPCs. Targeting less competitive keywords could dramatically reduce your costs. 

  Improve ROI

  Today, marketing budgets make up almost 10% of a company’s total revenue, up from 6.4% in 2021. With so much revenue at stake, you’ve got to deliver a return on that investment. 

  Measuring marketing effectiveness can help you identify the campaigns or strategies delivering the highest ROI so you can invest more heavily into them. On the other side of the same coin, you can use the data to strike off any campaigns that aren’t pulling their weight — increasing your ROI even further. 

  Demonstrate value

  Let’s get selfish for a second. Whether you’re an in-house marketing manager or work for an agency, the security of your paycheck depends on your ability to deliver high-ROI campaigns. 

  Measuring your marketing effectiveness lets you showcase your value to your company and clients. It helps you build stronger relationships that can lead to bigger and better opportunities in the future. 

  We should take this opportunity to point out that a good tool for measuring marketing effectiveness is equally important. You probably think Google Analytics will do the job, right ? But when you start implementing the strategies we discuss below, there’s a good chance you’ll have data quality issues. 

  That was the case for full-service marketing agency MHP/Team SI, which found Google Analytics’ data sampling severely limited the quantity and quality of insights they could collect. It was only by switching to Matomo, a platform that doesn’t use data sampling, that the agency could deliver the insights its clients needed to grow. 

  Further reading :

  • How to check website traffic as accurately as possible
  • 8 best tools to analyse website traffic

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  How to measure marketing effectiveness

  Measuring marketing effectiveness is not always easy, especially if you have long buying cycles and a lack of good-quality data. Make things as easy as possible by following the steps below :

  Know what success looks like

  You can’t tell whether your campaigns are effective if you don’t know what you are trying to achieve. That’s why the first step in measuring marketing effectiveness is to set a clear goal. 

  So, ask yourself what success looks like for each campaign you launch. 

  Remember, a campaign doesn’t have to drive leads to be considered effective. If all you wanted to do was raise brand awareness or increase organic traffic, you could achieve both goals without recording a single conversion. 

  We’d wager that’s probably not true for most marketing managers. It’s much more likely you want to achieve something like the following :

  • Generating 100 new customers
  • Increasing revenue by 20%
  • Selling $5,000 of your new product line
  • Reducing customer churn by 50%
  • Achieving a return on ad spend of 150%

  Conventional goal-setting wisdom applies here. So, ensure your goals are measurable, timely, relevant and achievable. 

  Track conversions

  Setting up conversion tracking in your web analytics platform is vital to measuring marketing effectiveness accurately. 

  What you count as a conversion event will depend on the goals you’ve set above. It doesn’t have to be a sale, mind you. Downloading an ebook or signing up for a webinar are worthy conversion goals, especially if you know they increase the chances of a customer converting. 

  

  Whichever platform you choose, ensure it can meet your current and future needs. This is one of the reasons open-source content management system Concrete CMS opted for Matomo when choosing a new website analytics platform. The flexibility of the Matomo platform gave Concrete CMS the adaptability it needed for future growth. 

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  Decide on an attribution model

  Marketing attribution is a way of measuring the impact of different channels and touchpoints across the customer journey. If you can assign a value to each conversion, you can use a marketing attribution model to quantify the value of your channels and campaigns.

  While most web analytics platforms simply credit the last touchpoint, marketing attribution offers a more comprehensive view by considering all interactions along the customer journey. This distinction is important because relying solely on the last touchpoint can lead to skewed insights and misallocation of resources and budget. 

  By adopting a marketing attribution approach, you can make more informed decisions, optimizing your campaigns and maximizing your return on investment.

  

  There are several different attribution models you can use to give credit to your various campaigns. These include :

  • First interaction : Gives all the credit to the first channel in the customer journey.
  • Last interaction : Gives all the credit to the last channel in the customer journey.
  • Last non-direct attribution : Gives all credit to the final touchpoint in the customer journey, except for direct interactions. In those cases, credit is given to the touchpoint just before the direct one.
  • Linear attribution : Distributes credit equally across all touchpoints.
  • Position-based attribution : Attributes 40% credit to the first and last touchpoints and distributes the remaining 20% evenly across all other touchpoints. 

  Consider carefully which attribution model to use, as this can significantly impact your marketing effectiveness calculation by giving certain campaigns too much credit.

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  Analyse KPIs

  Tracking KPIs is essential if you want to quantify the impact of your marketing campaigns. But which metrics should you track ?

  To improve brand awareness or traffic, so-called vanity metrics like sessions, returning visitors, and organic traffic may suffice as KPIs. 

  However, that’s not going to be the case for most marketers, whose performance is tied to revenue and ROI. If that’s you, put vanity metrics to one side and focus on the following conversion metrics instead :

  • Conversion rate : the percentage of users who complete a desired action. 
  • Return on ad spend : the revenue earned for every dollar spent on a campaign.
  • Return on investment : a broader calculation than ROAS, typically calculated across all your marketing efforts. 
  • Customer lifetime value : the total amount a customer will spend throughout their relationship with your company.
  • Customer acquisition cost : the cost to acquire each customer on average.

  

  Your analytics platform and advertising tools should track most of these KPIs by default. Matomo, for instance, automatically calculates your conversion rate in the Goals report. 

  How to present your marketing effectiveness

  Calculating your marketing effectiveness is one thing, but it’s important to share this information with stakeholders — whether those are executives in your company or your agency’s clients. 

  Follow the steps below to create an insightful and compelling marketing report :

  • Set the scene. There’s no guarantee that the people reading your report will know your goals. So, add context at the start of the reporting by spelling out what you are trying to achieve and why. 
  • Select the right data. You don’t want to overwhelm the reader with facts and figures, but you do need to provide hard evidence of your success. Include the KPIs you used to measure your success and show how these have changed over time. You can also support your report with audience insights such as heatmaps or customer surveys.
  • Tell a story with your presentation. Give your presentation a narrative arc with a beginning, middle, and end. Start with what you want to achieve, describe how you plan to achieve it and end with the results. Support your story with graphs and other visual aids that hold your reader’s attention. 
  • Provide a concise summary. Not everyone will read your presentation cover to cover. With that in mind, provide a summary of your report at the start or end that shows what you achieved and quantifies your marketing effectiveness. 

  How to improve marketing effectiveness

  Don’t settle for simply measuring your marketing effectiveness. Use the following strategies to make future campaigns as effective as possible. 

  Understand customer behaviour

  More effective marketing campaigns start by deeply understanding your customers, who they are, and how they behave. This allows you to take an audience-first approach to your marketing efforts and design campaigns around the unique needs of your customers. 

  Gather as much first-party data as you can. Surveys, focus groups, and other market research techniques can help you learn more about who your customers are, but don’t disregard the quantitative data you can gather from your web analytics platform. 

  Using Heatmaps, Session Recordings and behavioural analytics tools, you can learn exactly how customers behave when they land on your site, where they focus their attention and which pages they look at first. 

  

  These insights can help you turn an average campaign into an exceptional one. For example, a heatmap may highlight the need to move CTA buttons above the fold to increase conversions. A session recording could pinpoint the problems users have when filling out your website’s forms. 

  Further reading :

  • What Is Behavioural Analytics & How Can It Improve Website Performance
  • 9 Form Optimisation Tips to Convert More Visitors
  • How to Increase Conversions with Form Analysis

  Optimise landing pages

  Developing a culture of testing and experimentation is a great way to improve your marketing effectiveness. Let’s dive into A/B testing.

  By tweaking various elements of your landing pages, you can squeeze every last conversion from your campaigns.

  

  We have a guide on conversion funnel optimisation, which we recommend you check out, but I’ll briefly list some of the optimisations you could test :

  • Making your CTAs actionable and compelling
  • Integrating images and videos
  • Adding testimonials and other forms of social proof
  • Reducing form fields

  Use a different attribution model

  It might be that some campaigns, strategies or traffic sources aren’t getting the love they deserve. By changing your attribution model, you can significantly change the perceived effectiveness of certain campaigns. 

  Let’s say you use a last-touch attribution model, for instance. Only the last channel customers will get credit for each conversion, meaning top-of-the-funnel campaigns like SEO may be deemed less effective than they are. 

  It’s why you must continually test, tweak and validate your chosen model — and why changing it can be so powerful. 

  Measure your marketing effectiveness with Matomo

  Measuring your marketing effectiveness is hard work. But it’s vital to optimise campaigns, improve your ROI and demonstrate your value. 

  The good news is that Matomo makes things a lot easier thanks to its comprehensive conversion tracking, attribution modelling capabilities and behavioural insight features like Heatmaps, A/B Testing and Session Recordings. 

  Take steps today to start measuring (and improving) the effectiveness of your marketing with our 21-day free trial. No credit card required.

  Try Matomo for Free

  21 day free trial. No credit card required.

  
  

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• What Is Data Ethics & Why Is It Important in Business ?

  9 mai 2024, par Erin

  Data is powerful — every business on earth uses data. But some are leveraging it more than others.

  The problem ?

  Not all businesses are using data ethically.

  You need to collect, store, and analyse data to grow your business. But, if you aren’t careful, you could be crossing the line with your data usage into unethical territories.

  In a society where data is more valuable than ever, it’s crucial you perform ethical practices.

  In this article, we break down what data ethics is, why it’s important in business and how you can implement proper data ethics to ensure you stay compliant while growing your business.

  What is data ethics ?

  Data ethics are how a business collects, protects and uses data.

  It’s one field of ethics focused on organisations’ moral obligation to collect, track, analyse and interpret data correctly.

  

  Data ethics analyses multiple ways we use data :

  • Collecting data
  • Generating data
  • Tracking data
  • Analysing data
  • Interpreting data
  • Implementing activities based on data

  Data ethics is a field that asks, “Is this right or wrong ?”

  And it also asks, “Can we use data for good ?”

  If businesses use data unethically, they could get into serious hot water with their customers and even with the law.

  You need to use data to ensure you grow your business to the best of your ability. But, to maintain a clean slate in the eyes of your customers and authorities, you need to ensure you have strong data ethics.

  Why you need to follow data ethics principles

  In 2018, hackers broke into British Airways’ website by inserting harmful code, leading website visitors to a fraudulent site. 

  The result ? 

  British Airways customers gave their information to the hackers without realising it : credit cards, personal information, login information, addresses and more.

  While this was a malicious attack, the reality is that data is an integral part of everyday life. Businesses need to do everything they can to protect their customers’ data and use it ethically.

  Data ethics is crucial to understand as it sets the standard for what’s right and wrong for businesses. Without a clear grasp of data ethics, companies will willingly or neglectfully misuse data.

  With a firm foundation of data ethics, businesses worldwide can make a collective effort to function smoothly, protect their customers, and, of course, protect their own reputation. 

  3 benefits of leaning into data ethics

  We’re currently transitioning to a new world led by artificial intelligence.

  While AI presents endless opportunities for innovation in the business world, there are also countless risks at play, and it’s never been more important to develop trust with your customers and stakeholders.

  With an influx of data being created and tracked daily, you need to ensure your business is prioritising data ethics to ensure you maintain trust with your customers moving forward.

  

  Here are three benefits of data ethics that will help you develop trust, maintain a solid reputation and stay compliant to continue growing your business :

  1. Compliance with data privacy

  Privacy is everything. 

  In a world where our data is being collected nonstop, and we live more public lives than ever with social media, AI and an influx of recording and tracking in everyday life, you need to protect the privacy of your customers.

  One crucial way to protect that privacy is by complying with major data privacy regulations.

  Some of the most common regulations you need to remain compliant with include :

  • General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
  • California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
  • Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
  • General Personal Data Protection Law (LGPD)
  • Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations (PECR)

  While these regulations don’t directly address ethics, there’s a core overlap between privacy requirements like accountability, lawfulness and AI ethics.

  Matomo ensures you protect the privacy of your web and app users so you can track and improve your website performance with peace of mind.

  2. Maintain a good reputation

  While data ethics can help you maintain data privacy compliance, it can also help you maintain a good reputation online and offline.

  All it takes is one bad event like the British Airways breach for your company’s reputation to be ruined.

  If you want to keep a solid reputation and maintain trust with your stakeholders, customers and lawmakers, then you need to focus on developing strong data ethics.

  Businesses that invest time in establishing proper data ethics set the right foundation to protect their reputation, develop trust with stakeholders and create goodwill and loyalty.

  3. Increased trust means greater revenue

  What happens when you establish proper data ethics ?

  You’ll gain the trust of your customers, maintain a solid reputation and increase your brand image.

  Customers who trust you to protect their privacy and data want to keep doing business with you.

  So, what’s the end result for a business that values data ethics ?

  You’ll generate more revenue in the long run. Trust is one thing you should never put on the back burner if you have plans to keep growing your business. By leaning more into data ethics, you’ll be able to build that brand reputation that helps people feel comfortable buying your products and services on repeat.

  While spending time and money on data ethics may seem like an annoyance, the reality is that it’s a business investment that will pay dividends for years to come.

  5 core data ethics principles

  So, what exactly is involved in data ethics ?

  For most people, data ethics is a pretty broad and vague term. If you’re curious about the core pillars of data ethics, then keep reading.

  Here are five core data ethical principles you need to follow to ensure you’re protecting your customers’ data and maintaining trust :

  

  1. Data ownership

  The individual owns the data, not you. This is the first principle of data ethics. You don’t have control over someone else’s data. It’s theirs, and they have full ownership over it.

  Just as stealing a TV from an electronics store is a crime, stealing (or collecting) someone’s personal data without their consent is considered unlawful and unethical.

  Consent is the only way to ethically “own” someone’s data.

  How can you collect someone’s data ethically ?

  • Digital privacy policies
  • Signed, written agreements
  • Popups with checkboxes that allow you to track users’ behaviour

  Essentially, anytime you’re collecting data from your website or app users, you need to ensure you’re asking permission for that data.

  You should never assume a website visitor or customer is okay with you collecting your data automatically. Instead, ask permission to collect, track and use their data to avoid legal and ethical issues.

  2. Transparency

  The second core principle of data ethics within business is transparency. This means you need to be fully transparent on when, where and how you :

  • Collect data
  • Store data
  • Use data

  In other words, you need to allow your customers and website visitors to have a window inside your data activities.

  They need to be able to see exactly how you plan on using the data you’re collecting from them.

  For example, imagine you implemented a new initiative to personalise the website experience for each user based on individual behaviour. To do this, you’ll need to track cookies. In this case, you’d need to write up a new policy stating how this behavioural data is going to be collected, tracked and used.

  It’s within your website visitors’ rights to access this information so they can choose whether or not they want to accept or decline your website’s cookies.

  With any new data collection or tracking, you need to be 100% clear about how you’re going to use the data. You can’t be deceptive, misleading, or withholding any information on how you will use the data, as this is unethical and, in many cases, unlawful.

  3. Privacy

  Another important branch of ethics is privacy. The ethical implications of this should be obvious.

  When your users, visitors, or customers enter your sphere of influence and you begin collecting data on them, you are responsible for keeping that data private.

  When someone accepts the terms of your data usage, they’re not agreeing to have their data released to the public. They’re agreeing to let you leverage that data as their trusted business provider to better serve them. They expect you to maintain privacy.

  You can’t spread private information to third parties. You can’t blast this data to the public. 

  This is especially important if someone allows you to collect and use their personally identifiable information (PII), such as :

  • First and last name
  • Email address
  • Date of birth
  • Home address
  • Phone number

  To protect your audience’s data, you should only store it in a secure database. 

  

  For example, Matomo’s web analytics solution guarantees the privacy of both your users and analytics data.

  With Matomo, you have complete ownership of your data. Unlike other web analytics solutions that exploit your data for advertising purposes, Matomo users can use analytics with confidence, knowing that their data won’t be sold to advertisers.

  Learn more about data privacy with Matomo here.

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  4. Intention

  When you collect and store data, you need to tell your users why you’re collecting their data. But there’s another principle of data ethics that goes beyond the reason you give your customers.

  Intention is the reason you give yourself for collecting and using the data.

  Before you start collecting and storing data, you should ask yourself the following :

  • Why you need it
  • What you’ll gain from it
  • What changes you’ll be able to make after you analyse the data

  If your intention is wrong in any way, it’s unethical to collect the data :

  • You’re collecting data to hurt others
  • You’re collecting data to profit from your users’ weaknesses
  • You’re collecting data for any other malicious reason

  When you collect data, you need to have the right intentions to maintain proper data ethics ; otherwise, you could harm your brand, break trust and ruin your reputation.

  5. Outcomes

  You may have the best intentions, but sometimes, there are negative outcomes from data use.

  For example, British Airways’ intention was not to allow hackers to gain access and harm their users. But the reality is that their customers’ data was stolen and used for malicious purposes. While this isn’t technically unlawful, the outcome of collecting data ended badly.

  To ensure proper data ethics, you must have good standing with your data. This means protecting your users at all costs, maintaining a good reputation and ensuring proper privacy measures are set up.

  How to implement data ethics as a business leader

  As a business leader, CTO or CEO, it’s your responsibility to implement data ethics within your organisation. Here are some tips to implement data ethics based on the size and stage of your organisation :

  Startups

  If you’re a startup, you need to be mindful of which technology and tools you use to collect, store and use data to help you grow your business.

  It can be a real challenge to juggle all the moving parts of a startup since things can change so quickly. However, it’s crucial to establish a leader and allow easy access to ethical analysis resources to maintain proper data ethics early on.

  Small and medium-sized businesses

  As you begin scaling, you’ll likely be using even more technology. With each new business technique you implement, there will be new ways you’ll be collecting user data. 

  One of the key processes involved in managing data as you grow is to hire engineers who build out different technologies. You must have protocols, best practices and management overseeing the new technologies being built to ensure proper data ethics.

  Global businesses

  Have you scaled internationally ?

  There will be even more rules, laws, regulations and organisations to answer to if you start managing data unethically.

  You should have established teams or departments to ensure you follow proper privacy and data protocols worldwide. When you have a large organisation, you have more money and vast amounts of data. This makes you a bigger target for leaks, ransomware and hackers.

  You should ensure you have cross-departmental groups working to establish ongoing protocols and training to keep your data management in good standing.

  Leverage data ethically with Matomo

  Data is powerful.

  It’s a crucial point of leverage that’s required to stay competitive.

  However, improper use and management of data can give you a bad reputation, break trust and even cause you legal trouble.

  That’s why you must maintain good data ethics within your organisation.

  One of the most important places to set up proper data ethics and privacy measures is with your website analytics.

  Matomo is the leading, privacy-friendly web analytics solution in the world. It automatically collects, stores, and tracks data across your website ethically.

  With over 1 million websites using Matomo, you get to take full control over your website performance with :

  • Accurate data (no data sampling)
  • Privacy-friendly and GDPR-compliant analytics
  • Open-source for transparency and to create a custom solution for you

  Try Matomo free for 21-days. No credit card required.

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