When Sarah visits Sephora online, the makeup and beauty site helps her pick the perfect shade from more than a hundred skin tones, thanks to her unique profile in its Beauty Insider rewards program. That’s personalization.
The company inspires her to opt into its marketing program, gathers data, and uses it to tailor offers and her “personalized” experience on the site. Many companies leverage personalization to sell products and services. For some industries, however, “personalization” causes problems with regulators and privacy advocates who take the term at face value as a claim that websites and ads using “personalization” can personally identify a user, even if the user has not consented to be recognized…
