Day 155 Informed consent

Informed consent

Informed consent is an important consideration for an organization’s customers and their Privacy Policy. Generally, there are two models of informed consent typically used in ecommerce and Social Networking sites privacy policies. So to determine which one is most preferred by the customers has became an important task for managers. 

The two privacy control models commonly introduced in ecommerce and social networking websites are Opt-in and Opt-out model. Opt-in model restricts the entity from using customers’ information, unless specifically consented by customers. In contrast, the Opt-out model allows the company to utilize the information, except data that customers forbidden to disclose. Jeffrey M. Lacker suggested that Opt-out means entities have the right to share information; customers can ask them to stop. Opt-in means customers have the right to no-information-sharing; entities can ask them for permission to share. (Lacker, 2002) 

Generally, privacy advocates and customers espouse the Opt-in strategy. This model requires the users to provide explicit consent, which instructs the use of information. (Johnson, Bellman and Lohse 2002) Customers believe that they will maintain more control over their privacy rights when adopting Opt-in model. Since all released information is under their instruction. In fact, people feel safer and comfortable to share information in this system, hence the Opt-in strategy actually yields a higher customer response rate. Which leads to produce more valuable information for entities. In addition, the Opt-in model prevents the involuntary information leaks, because people were not aware of the implicit privacy provisions or changes in the Opt-out model. In regard to this problem, Facebook was forced by the U.S. government to introduce Opt-in privacy changes in 2011. McIver and Elmagarmid further justified the customers’ preference on privacy control models where 72.4 percent of them choose the Opt-in approach. (McIver and Elamagarmid, 2002, p 251)