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North American Corporate Privacy Comparison
Scooter[AMMO] writes "The Toronto Star has published an article on a study comparing the way companies protect the privacy of their customers, which is surely a topic of interest to most /.'ers. Choice quote: 'The study, the first to compare the corporate privacy practices of comparable Canadian and U.S. firms, found that Canadian businesses see their privacy practices as an opportunity to improve relations with customers, while their U.S. counterparts viewed privacy measures more as a way of complying with legislation and avoiding civil lawsuits.'"
In the United States, "It's all about complying with the law, which may or may not have any bearing to people," said Ponemon. "In Canada, I got the sense that they thought it was just the right thing to do."
Isn't that exactly why we have laws in the first place, to set up penalties for not doing the 'right thing?'
The privacy issue of customers and employees alike takes an interesting spin when you factor in outsourcing. Suddenly, all of your personal data is in someone's database overseas. That's ok, until there's a political problem. When you have a government who doesn't give a rat's butt about privacy laws in other countries, and someone decides to sell your data, you're screwed.
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
Indeed, 61 per cent of surveyed Canadian companies linked "good privacy practices" to customer trust and brand loyalty, compared to only 17 per cent of U.S. companies.
Maybe it's different in Canada, but there's a reason only 17% of US companies think that - because people around here just don't care! Sure, we complain about spam and junk mail, but how many people do you know (that don't read Slashdot!) actually care about their privacy at all? I'd say less than 10%. Look at how people react to invasions of privacy by the government ("It's for our protection!") and by companies ("Hey, if I use this card who cares if they track my purchases, I saved $2!"). They just don't give a damn!
Is it possible that Canadian citizens care more about privacy, making it make more sense for Canadian corporations to value privacy more?
As a student and part of business school is learning about ethical/privacy concerns. I go to a private, Catholic university that's good about ethics and doesn't over do the religion, so they very good about posing ethical/moral decisions on students. Part of the studies is to recognize international/other nation's attitudes and expectations. On what I've seen, Europe is a far more private and "American" than the U.S. The U.S. business attitude is "ok, we have to comply, but how far can we push this?" Not Europe's, "hmm, is this good for our consumers?"
Sad, really.
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
When your medical/financial records are sent to god knows where for whatever reason, your: Name, DOB, SSN, and address are sent along with it. Everything a crook/terrorist needs to steal your identity and cause havoc.
There was this study that most identity thefts are an inside job. Mostly from financial and medical firms. Identity Theft
I think it is geo-specific. Fuck the customer in every way possible, and make sure they don't find out. That is the US corporate mantra nowadays.
If you need examples, go car or house shopping.
And the best part is the employees are finally seeing that it is not just the customer getting fucked, but everyone below the CEO in the company as well. Unfortunately, most are adapting the "that is just the way it is, so I have to cover my own ass" attitude, which of course takes away from their ability to do a good job.
I just tried to call the number and it was busy. Certainly feel free to verify any information regarding this. (Google cache of State of NJ website listing this and other methods). I only wish that I could end "CAR RT SORT" mail from getting to me. All I do is toss out dozens of circulars per week. A waste of paper and time.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
I'm afraid that my experience of American companies means that I don't trust them any more. Sorry, but that's the case. Three times now I've been involved in deals with American companies where the American company has betrayed one of their European partners, just to make a fast buck, including one case which financially ruined one of my clients.
You should do the right thing just because it is the right thing to do, not because it's the law or so you don't lose customers.
I wsa in a meeting with some marketing people about designing our ecommerce site. To make a long story short, the marketing guy says "We need to collect personal information from our customers."
Me: "Why? We're not doing any marketing studies."
Marketing guy: "Someday, we may need it."
A lot of this has do with the magical thinking that collecting as much information on your customers leads to better business decisions. Most of the time, I see these folks collecting so much data that they don't have a clue what to do with it.
Yes. It borders Canada.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
"It could be that (U.S. companies) feel what they're doing is more than adequate and just as protective of the customer."
with this passage from a MetLife insurance application (printed entirely in bold in the original, emphasis mine):
We may use what we know about you in order to offer you our other products and services. We may disclose this information (other than consumer reports and health information) to our affiliates so that they can offer their products and services, or ours, to you. By law, we don't have to let you prevent these disclosures. Our affiliates include life, car and home insurers, securities firms, broker-dealers, a bank, a legal plans company and financial advisors. In the future we may have affiliates in other businesses.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
I work in a library. It took me 2-3 months of constant bugging to get our privacy practices posted on the web. The first reponse we got back from legal council was that, and I quote, "The policy is somewhat that we don't post notices about the law." (the USA PATRIOT Act being the law in question)
Oh well, next up is getting us to admit to the public that we have video cameras installed....
Why do Canadians do things to distance ourselves from the US? We just don't agree all the time. That's acceptable, right? We didn't want to go to war, you guys did, so we each did our own thing. In Canada, the emphasis is on the community, not the individual - the greater group decided that we didn't want to go to war, so we didn't as a group. In the US, everything is geared towards individuals, so the people that wanted to go to war (i.e. politicans, soldiers) did, whereas the ones who didn't (i.e. Michael Moore ;) ) protested. They're just different systems, that's all. This is a gross generalistion, of course, but it gives you a basic idea.
Disclaimer: I am not a troll. Promise!
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
As a Canadian I would like to help debunk the myth of Canadians as so much "nicer" than Americans.
We have a habitual need to publish smarmy, self-serving articles about our superiority to our chums down south. We pollute less (wrong), we're more environmentally aware (wrong), there's no racism (wrong), we don't have crime (wrong), we're clean (wrong - come to Toronto sometime and sample one of our many fine street corner garbage tornados, sewer reeks and impromptu construction debris dumps), our health care is great (wrong) , our brains are bigger, our dicks are smaller but they're magical so it doesn't matter, the sun shines out of our arseholes to warm the entire world, blah blah blah.
OK, with the context firmly in place, I've worked in two places since the recent privacy acts have some into force and I'm sorry, it's just a bogus bogus bogus self-serving, lie to state that Canadian companies are motivated more by a desire to have "better customer relationships" than by a desire to avoid litigation. Don't make a mistake, this is an opportunitiy for lawyers to scare companies into paying them consultant fees and that is exactly what is happening. Where I've worked (insurance industry) it's been jumping cats trying to avoid doing anything with personal info that could cause lawsuits. Shredders are working overtime. Policy and procedure documents are sprouting like mushrooms. All inititatives are led by lawyers and all the executives have to say is "don't get us sued". Not "we find this a tremendous opportunity to serve our beloved clients" but "We abuse our customers and they hate us. We can't give them a chance to sue us because they will. For god's sake, don't get us sued!!! Please!!!"
Just like in the US, the successful businesses in Canada are those which lie, cheat, and abuse their customers.
"Europeans think 100 miles is a long distance
Americans think 100 years is a long time"
I've just been thinking about this lately with respect to world events.
Everyone is claiming that the President should have know about the prisoner abuse in Iraq. Well, thats all fine and good, but what does that mean when its applied to you and your job? Does the president/CEO of your company need to know everything thats going on at your company? If you answered yes to that question, then the inverse of that is; do you have any decisionmaking ability whatsoever in your job?
I find it disturbing how many people in the media and people in general expect full and absolute accountability from top levels of companies and the government, yet fail to realize that this means there will end up being no responsibility or care for the customer at the bottom if those people have no power or influence. Of course in the corporate (and I'm sure government too) world, there is also a lot of higher ups blaming their powerless workers for problems created from the top as well.
The power and the responsibility need to be at the same level, or things get broken fast.