Consumer sovereignty and its effects on the companies

As more and more businesses go online, the more opportunities businesses can leverage to improve their operations through customers’ feedback but on the other hand, there comes a responsibility to make those data safe. As they say with great power comes great responsibility. Consumers' and suppliers' trust has become increasingly hazy in recent years. Because there is less face-to-face contact between buyers and sellers, online commerce is now a bigger problem than offline companies. In many aspects, virtual buying differs from traditional buying in that traditional buying involves interaction and the simultaneous transfer of money and commodities, whereas virtual buying plainly does not. Consumers are requested to provide personal information to online intermediaries in this context. Consumers and other new technology, such as smart devices, may bring up new security and data-handling concerns.

Data breaching and consumers’ concerns have led governments to introduce many laws such as GDPR (general data protection and regulation) in Europe and CASL (Canada anti-spam Legislation) in Canada. Out of 142 countries for which data are available, 115 have adopted legislation on consumer protection related to e-commerce. That share varies from 78% in Europe to 52% in Africa and 71% in the Americas. (Online Consumer Protection Law Worldwide, 2019). This statistic shows that the political stance on customer privacy is now a serious matter for every country

THE NEW AXIOM GOES IN THE GLOBAL MARKET THAT THE CONSUMER DATA PROTECTION LAWS WILL LIMIT THE REACH OF BUSINESSES. BUT IS THAT STATEMENT ENTIRELY TRUE? LET’S FIND OUT, SHALL WE?

First of all, companies’ marketing teams have to analyze the whole e-mail campaign because of the explicit permission and consent given by customers to the company in order to use data. To cite an illustration of the seriousness of CASL law in Canada, Rogers media a subsidiary of Rogers communication has been fined around $200,000 for not putting the unsubscribe mechanism in the electronic messages. (Roux, 2015). Second of all small and medium businesses were not prepared for the GDPR. 51% believe that GDPR is complex for small and medium businesses. (How the GDPR impacts and suffocates small and medium businesses, 2017) When we talk about the repercussions of this law on corporates within 3 years from now, we can deem that the direct marketing team will have limited access to reach their potential clients. Global businesses are not exempt from this law which makes Canada a less appealing country to run a business.

ANTI-SPAM LAWS HAVE A DIRECT EFFECT ON A COMPANY’S MARKETING TEAM AS WELL AS NOT COMPLYING WITH THESE LAWS IS NOW A BIG ISSUE FOR THE COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENT AND RISK MANAGERS.

References:

(2017). How the GDPR impacts and suffocates small and medium businesses. I-Scoop. https://www.iscoop.eu/gdpr/gdpr-small-medium-businesses/ (2019).

Online Consumer Protection Law Worldwide. Switzerland : United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. https://unctad.org/page/online-consumer-protection-legislation-worldwide

Roux, P. l. (2015, November 20). CASL Fines: Rogers Media Pays $200K. Retrieved from Certimail.com: https://certimail.ca/en/articles/casl-fines-rogers-media-pays-200k