Mobile applications: A game between user privacy and business interests

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Tencent Science and Technology (Qin Island) Beijing time August 4 News, according to foreign media reports, as more and more companies begin to track and monitor users ' online activities and customized buying behavior to provide highly accurate services, they also come to a dilemma, that is, how to balance the business value and personal privacy rights.

Mobile network is ubiquitous, and has the characteristics of immediacy, it is more powerful than network function, providing us with a new microscopic view of how we live and work. Mobility creates a whole new dimension, creating hundreds of of new parameters, including location, speed, orientation, proximity to objects and people, interaction patterns and tonal patterns, which can be used to track and analyze user behavior.

"On the Internet, the other side of the screen could be a dog," a phrase that used to describe the nature of the internet world that was not real enough. Today, with the Foursquare, Scvngr, and other geographical awareness services, this situation is not likely to happen again, now not only know you are not a dog, and even your geographical location and what you are doing can know.

Many users will be willing to offer their real names under the lure of discounts, badges and prestige titles, but perhaps you may get more than just a discount. Maybe your ex-boyfriend will use it to get in your way, or your husband can use it to find that you and your client have gone to the hotel and that you're just having a business meeting. This is the dark side of such services.

Verizon's accessibility Locator service can help parents track their children's whereabouts. Although children may not like it, parents have the privilege. However, some companies have broken the bottom line.

The noisy carrier IQ event is a good example. A mobile tracking software developed by carrier will be installed on the phone without the user's knowledge. Ultimately, this is done only to improve the user's wireless network signal, it does not read user e-mail, and does not store user text messages. However, users do not know. If the user knows that the data is collected to improve the quality of the service, some users will certainly be happy to provide such data. However, users should have the opportunity to choose whether to provide or not to provide the data; This is "the game between user privacy and business interests".

Some platforms and applications have powerful mobility analysis capabilities, such as Flurry, localytics, Bango, and Apsalar, which enable companies to understand how their customers interact with mobile applications in real time. This approach provides a great opportunity to develop personalized customization services and user loyalty programs.

Shopkick is a popular app that tells you what goods are on sale, what's in the store, and how to get rewarded. Shopkick explains why the data was being collected, which has led to a 150% increase in the number of users willing to provide their geographic location and shopping information.

Financial application software Mint allows users to track, budget, and manage their own financial transactions, while applications collect financial data from users and compare them to other users. Through the user contribution data, the Mint provides the user with the insurance, the credit card, the loan and so on project preferential activity. These benefits may be worth sacrificing your own privacy information, but this requires the user to decide for themselves.

For mobile internet companies, the visionary approach is to leverage privacy controls and transparency to make it a competitive advantage for companies. As Howard, Howard Rheingold, points out in the article "Gift economy", users will be more willing to share their personal information if they are willing to look at the gains of end users as a whole. This is critical, especially for users who have grown up in digital times to use social media as their primary communication tool.

The irresponsible use of these user data by companies will result in the worst results, which will eventually lead to government involvement in privacy legislation, which is not good news for consumers and the industry as a whole. Apple, Google, Microsoft, RIM, Hewlett-Packard and Amazon have just reached a mobile application privacy protection agreement with California's chief prosecutor, which requires them to tell users exactly when tracking user data. It is hoped that this event will provide a warning signal to the radical companies to handle user data in a proper and reasonable manner.

Companies are increasingly considering how to deal with the relationship between user privacy and business interests. Here are a few key business strategies to help companies maintain competitive advantage and avoid user churn.

· Companies can make and publish mobile privacy policies to their users, using Services Trustee or privacy Choice, or independent research and development.

· Tell your users why the company collects these personal data.

· Let the user control the data themselves, decide whether to join or exit. Azigo is a typical case, and it gives users a lot of control over the sharing of users and different brands.

· Make users aware of the benefits of providing data. Users should be the center to design applications, when it comes to data sharing, should take into account the user control and user feedback two key points.

· Let users realize that they will receive more rewards when they provide the data, and give users an immediate taste of the benefits. If done right, organizations can show users the benefits of sharing data through personal panels, rewards, value-added recommendations, and reminders.

If companies are able to handle the collection of mobile privacy data properly, they will be able to win more customers. Companies should not be lucky enough to think that users do not know or find their personal data stolen. If the enterprise can let users realize that they are benefiting, then users will also be willing to sell their own privacy information, and ultimately achieve the user and the company's winning situation.