• by Shankar Gupta , January 9, 2005

The vast majority of online consumers--89 percent--say they approve of marketers they trust sharing personal customer information without advance permission, if it leads to improved quality of services or products, according to a report the Ponemon Institute plans to release today. But one in five Web users think marketers should get permission before sharing personal information about consumers, if the marketers' goal is tracking purchases in order to influence buying decisions, according to the study, sponsored by Boston, Mass.-based Internet marketing firm Dotomi.

For the report, the "2005 Online Consumer Permissions Study," Ponemon surveyed nearly 1,800 Web users, who responded to an e-mail solicitation and were paid $5 each.

The findings could provide ammunition in a debate about whether marketers should be required to obtain consumers' permission before tracking their online behavior from site to site. California Rep. Mary Bono reintroduced legislation last week that would require permission before installing cookies used to track Web users throughout the Internet.

While Dotomi CEO John Federman said that legislation might be unnecessary, he also said that obtaining consumers' permission is good business. "When the marketers demonstrate by their actions that they respect the consumer, that they appreciate that consumer's business, and that they want to nurture that relationship--that increases the effectiveness of the marketers' campaign," Federman said.

The study also found that 84 percent of consumers surveyed stated that they want control over the types and frequency of Internet ads sent from a specific merchant; 64 percent of consumers would trust a marketer more if they had control over the types of online communications that were sent to them.

When asked for personal information, consumers are most willing to share their birthday, hobbies, and contact information--phone numbers, addresses, and e-mail--but are reluctant to provide social security numbers, bank information, and nationality. For instance, more than 90 percent of respondents were willing to give their phone numbers to online merchants, including merchants they had not previously done business with; only half were willing to share bank information with merchants they knew; and a scant 28 percent said they would provide bank information to merchants they did not know.