As a business owner or manager, that is not an encouraging climate when you want to make the most out of your customer data. Yet this ought to be a golden age for realising the value of personal information. After all, 76 per cent of households now have access to the Internet, opening e-commerce and email to the mass market. And with 94 per cent of households having access to at least one mobile phone, digital devices are the new hub through which consumers manage their lives - and for brands to reach out to them.

Information about consumers has never been more accessible and actionable. Certainly, companies are collecting data as fast as they can. When ALLOW recently did a sampling exercise across ten well-known websites, it found that more than 140 cookies were being placed onto our web browser. These allow advertisers to identify the same visitor (or at least their computer) each time they surf a site, building a picture of who they are and what interests them.

That gives a valuable insight which can be used to improve marketing and online content by making it more relevant to the consumer. The problem is that individuals are often unaware this is being done. When they find out, it can become a concern. In research carried out by the Information Commissioner’s Office, 96 per cent of consumers said they were concerned about organisations passing or selling their personal information to other companies.

Where the individual is worried, governments tend to step in. Concerns about a lack of informed consent to the use of cookies has already led to changes in the law about how they are used. Since 26th May, consumers have to be given an explicit opportunity to opt-out of having a cookie placed on their computer. Relying on the default browser setting to accept all cookies is no longer good enough.

Instead, your company needs to review how it is using cookies and whether they are intrusive. If they are being used to build a profile on each website visitor, the new law requires you to get an opt-in. (Under the old rules, you only had to offer an opt-out.) A variety of mechanisms is expected to develop to help businesses do this - working with a trusted data partner like ALLOW is one way to stay compliant and still have a value-driving web presence.

That’s quite a change and one which digital marketers will spend the rest of the year trying to get to grips with. But it connects with a shift in the way consumers view their personal information and the way it is shared. To maintain a good connection with your customer base and the way it wants to engage with your business, it is time to get up to date about these attitudes and the solutions that are in line with data’s new eco-system.

Shifting values

Marketing used to be based on the permissive use of data - now it has to rely on permission. Over the last decade there has been a steady shift in the balance of power away from companies using personal information for marketing and towards consumers who want to control the messages they get. It all started in 2002 when anybody registering to vote got the chance to opt-out of having their name and address sold to marketers. As of last year, 45 per cent of voters had chosen to do this.

In those ten years, consumers have learnt a lot about what companies do with their data, often through things going wrong. Bad enough that some of the most trusted brands in the country, including Marks and Spencer, should have customer email addresses stolen. But when the tax authorities casually put 25 million records onto a disk and post it - only for the data to get lost - it reveals just how much information is being kept and the risks associated with that.

In response, consumers are not just becoming savvy, they are also getting more wary. The Direct Marketing Association has just asked consumers what they do if, when looking on a website for information on a product or service, they are asked to give their personal data. More than one in ten (12 per cent) said they always terminate the transaction, with a further 27 per cent saying they frequently do so.

That shows the extent to which consumers have lost their trust and also how much attitudes are being changed by social media. Staying anonymous - or closely controlling who gets to know your true identity - is one of the attractions of social networking sites. Brands are responding by putting their marketing messages out through Facebook, for example, without always asking for data in return.

In the early stages of the buying process, this is restoring a power to the consumer that they have always taken for granted in retail - to look, consider and compare without having to commit or expose themselves. Consumers still want to buy. But they way they go about it is changing, especially in the digital world.

Changing the rules

The new law about how to use cookies could be just the start of a wholesale change in how personal information gets into the marketing process. A review is scheduled of the Data Protection Directive - the over-arching legislation in Europe that determines how data can be captured, processed and transferred and the individual’s rights when that is being done.

One of the proposals being made is for a “right to be forgotten”. When organisations get hold of consumer data, they tend to keep it, often long after it has served its purpose. Sony Online Entertainment revealed that the 25 million records hacked from its systems had been sitting on a database last used in 2007, for example. Five years on, it is likely that much of that contact information will not only be out of date, but also that many of those customers will have moved on in their tastes, habits and involvement with the brand.

No wonder some legislators argue for enforced deletion policies, giving back to the consumer a level of anonymity in their actions online. That could be a concern for commercial organisations who want to sustain relationships with their customers, even after they have lapsed or gone dormant.

Balancing that consumer right with business needs is likely to drive up adoption of new types of personal information management systems. These provide a platform through which the consumer can directly control the marketing they receive and the relationships they want to sustain. In doing so, they restore that sense of ownership of personal information which nine out of ten consumers feel they have lost.

One example of this type of platform is operated by ALLOW. It provides a double benefit to  consumers who sign up to the service: firstly, it notifies data owners the consumer no longer wants to hear from and opts them out of their marketing; secondly, it tells brands the consumer is interested in and begins a relationship - and where that data has value to the brand, ALLOW shares the financial return with its members. The whole process is transparent, fair and a true value exchange between consumers and companies.

It is also aligned with the way the UK Government expects personal information to be managed and is asking the Information Commissioner to enforce. A new Consumer Empowerment initiative embraces the power shift, as the policy document puts it, “away from a world in which certain businesses control the information they hold about consumers, towards one in which individuals, acting alone or in groups, can use their data or views about an organisation for their own or mutual benefit.”

Third-party data applications will play a central part in delivering this “mydata” initiative, making platforms like ALLOW a valued partner to both sides in the value exchange. A market will grow up around these, offering the consumer more choice, more control and better oversight of their personal information.

Evolving your marketing

Marketing is no longer something the company does to the consumer - it has to become something that is done with the consumer. From gaining consent to respecting changes in permission, data will become harder to collect, but also much more valuable to every business.

Leveraging that value requires some changes to the marketing process. Being more upfront and transparent with consumers is critical in order to win permission to market. That may happen directly, via the brand’s own website, or it could be the result of a third-party’s involvement, such as using the ALLOW platform to get consumer engagement.

At each stage, it is the consumer who is in charge of the process. What companies need to have in place are marketing actions that reflect each step along the way, from initial contact and warm-up, to changes of mind and win-back. Buying cycles have become more complex, not least online. But make no mistake, consumers still want to buy.

Companies that respect these shifts will add value to their data, their customer base and their business as a whole.