Google is pervasive in our online lives: Social media, email, work documents and, of course, search are all pies in which Google has its fingers. It’s even recently acquired Nest Labs, the producers of smart thermostats and smoke sensors, so it will be present throughout our home lives too.
By Phillip Smith, Country Manager UK at Trusted Shops
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It’s no different in the online retail industry where businesses have always had to ensure their stores are Google optimised.
It’s now rolled out a new service in the UK called Certified Shops. The ‘free’ service aims to increase confidence for new shoppers by displaying a Certified Shops certification badge. Sounds fair enough, but in the process of providing this service will Google be taking data collection too far?
First of all, online retailers who sign up for the scheme are obligated to pass on a huge amount of order data to the American company including the name of goods, prices, discounts, e-mail addresses and details of returns.
Selected data is then displayed to the consumer on the Google Certified Shop Badge. Retailers pay for this alleged trust service with the data of their customers.
The Snowden revelations from the past year have made consumers and businesses rightly sensitive about their personal data.
As the saying goes: “If you’re not paying for something, you’re not the customer; you’re the product.” Retailers need to ask themselves if they are comfortable turning their data and their consumers into products for another company.
Google’s Certified Shops scheme is still in its pilot phase but from what we’ve seen so far, here are the other main points retailers should be aware of where customer data is concerned:
US data collection vs EU data protection:
Google Certified Shops is a US system which rates retailers on the basis of the mass transmission of data, often without the consent of the parties involved
Fair use:
Google collects the transaction data of an affiliated retailer and reserves the right to use this data for other purposes
Trust:
Is Google a company that generates trust with new consumers? For some maybe, however an increasingly knowledgeable public are becoming suspicious of these data giants and it is possible Google certification could turn some customers off
Of course, it is still too early to tell exactly how or what Google will do with all this information.
However, think of a consumer who is signed in to Gmail and Google+ while using Chrome and Google Search, is already giving up mountains of data. Will they be happy also giving away a 360 degree view of their purchasing behaviour to the same vendor?
What we do know is that consumers are becoming increasingly aware of their personal privacy. Whilst we can gain valuable insights from data capture – retailers must ensure trust-building measures are at the forefront, so that a strong retailer-customer relationship can be created.
For more visit www.trustedshops.co.uk
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