Nearly 3 in 4 consumers say retailers collect too much personal data

Nearly 3 out of 4 (74%) consumers think retailers collect too much personal information, according to a new report from ThoughtSpot, which sells data analytics software to retailers and other businesses.

Asked to choose up to two entities they distrust most with their personal data, 30.8% chose retailers. More distrusted with personal data were tech companies (56.4%) and governmental bodies (41.8%), but retailers were more distrusted than banks/financial services (19.9%), healthcare providers (16.7%), and small or local businesses (14%).

“Personalization built on explicit information customers have knowingly provided feels like service,” Miya Knights, a ThoughtSpot retail technology analyst, wrote in a foreword to the report. But “personalization inferred from implicit data, such as tracked behavior, location, or prediction, feels like surveillance.”

The distinction consumers make between information they’ve willingly provided and what retailers sleuthed is reflected in their responses. Only 27.8% responded that they objected to information they knowingly provided, less than half of the 57.6% who objected to retailers using behavior they tracked from other websites or apps.

The survey, fielded in partnership with YouGov, polled 4,833 adults in the US and UK.

Respondents didn’t trust AI recommendations much either: Only 13% responded that they trust them, with 47% distrustful of the recommendations and 34% neutral.

A June report from AI shopping platform Product.ai of 1,463 US online shoppers found that they tend to use AI research and recommendations as a component rather than a sole source of their purchase decisions.

More than 8 out of 10 (86%) who’d used AI to research products said they’d checked other sources before buying, with 45% of them reporting they always do so.