Heads up! California’s Attorney General just issued warning of an investigative sweep targeting mobile apps, particularly in retail, travel and food service industries that fail to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Letters were sent to businesses that may fail to provide consumers opt-out mechanisms or fail to honor consumer opt-out and deletion requests.
In the latest Whack-a-Mole privacy exposure reveal at Twitter, a former-employee whistleblower has told the US Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission and members of Congress that as many as 4,000 Twitter engineers could have accessed user data, including after Musk’s takeover via a function nicknamed “GodMode.” Twitter, again having recently gutted its compliance and communications teams, had no comment.
The Optimove 2023 Consumer Trust of Retailers Survey of US consumers found more than half don’t trust brand handling of personal information, and 77% unsubscribe from brands when they feel information is misused. Interestingly, 64% of the 406 surveyed said they are loyal to and shop at brands they don’t trust – and indicated the most important action a brand can take to change that is, according to 56%, to have a policy that it won’t share personal information.
Deep thinkers in the advertising world recognize that a single ad is rarely the only reason someone makes a purchase. But one-touch attribution is irresistibly simple. Sam’s Club has just announced it will link in-store purchases to online search ads within its retail ad network, giving many marketers what they want even if they know better.