personalization

E-com

the process by which a Web site presents customers with selected information on their specific needs. To do this, personal information is collected on the individual user, and employed to customize the Web site for that person. Used properly, personalization is a powerful tool that allows customers to access the right content more quickly, thus saving them valuable time. Personalization is particularly useful if a Web site contains a very large quantity of material, meaning that a visitor is slow in finding the information they seek. It also requires a large number of visitors to the Web site, because personalization systems are complex and expensive to install.

     Information on the customer is usually collected in one of two ways. Either the individual is asked to fill out a personal profile, perhaps informing the organization of the type of product and service he or she is interested in, or the organization uses software that tracks the way a customer uses the Web site. For example, a customer interested in Product X last week, might receive details of an update for Product X upon their next visit to the Web site. A popular method by which such tracking is carried out is the use of cookies, which reside on an individual’s browser and collect information on that person’s Web behavior. Because it requires the collection of personal information, personalization raises key privacy policy issues.