Industry trade groups spend a lot of time thinking about what is appropriate and ethical with respect to privacy and marketing. There is a tension inherent to the privacy debate: the more information marketers have, the more accurately they can target solicitations to consumers who are actually interested in them. However, the more information business has about a customer, the more heightened the concern about privacy and how that information is used.

Consumer confidence and trust are the key to long-term business success, and there now are widely accepted privacy best practices that businesses can adopt to build that trust. These best practices are built around four concepts: Notice, Choice, Access and Security.

Notice refers to the obligation you have to let customers know that your business is collecting information, and how you will use that information. Choice means that you should give consumers the ability to "opt-out" of certain uses, particularly sharing of the information with third parties. The Access principle says that, where reasonable, you should give your customers the ability to view and edit their personal data. This type of access is more easily delivered online, and many firms now offer customers the ability to view and edit their customer profile. Finally, your business should take appropriate steps to ensure the Security of customer data, both from internal and external misuse.

Two groups, the Online Privacy Alliance and the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), have further developed these concepts into practical business advice. The DMA, for example, advises business to:

1. Provide customers with notice of their ability to opt out of information exchanges.
2. Honor customer opt out requests to not have their contact information transferred to others for marketing purposes.
3. Accept and maintain consumer requests to be on an in-house suppress file to stop receiving solicitations from your company.

Take a look at the DMA and OPA sites (links below) for more detail, and good luck with your implementation!

Online Privacy Alliance (OPA) Guidelines

Direct Marketing Association Guidelines for Ethical Business Practice