How Private is Your PII at Chipotle?

 Nowadays when on the Internet, it can be scary to give away private information. There are so many threats online from unauthorized parties accessing personally identifiable information (PII) to receiving unsolicited promotional material to identity theft. Due to these threats it is important for consumers to know what their information is being used for and how well the company protects it. 

Chipotle: How Safe Are You?

When accessing the Chipotle company website, you are able to view the company's privacy policy page. Here, the company discusses what they do in order to protect consumers and their PII. The company only collects personal information when it is voluntarily given to them by consumers. Their policy went on to describe other aspects that will be discussed below.

The California Do Not Track Notice 

The company does not track any PII on their site unless it is explicitly given to them by consumers. 

Mobile Terms and Conditions

• Must be older than the age of 13 to use the program
• Once signing up for the mobile text program and providing their number, the consumer is fully aware of receiving promotional texts
• It is known that data and messaging rates may apply when using the program
• Data obtained when using the service will only be data given away by the user

Cookies

The site uses cookies to remember visitors and make their experience when using the site better.  

Sharing of Personal Information

The company does not sell consumers' personal information to any outside sources unless for reasons discussed in the policy. Such as, if consumers grant permission. Also, if publishing submissions on the site, the company does not include the publisher's name or information.

In Regards to Children

The company does not intend for those under the age of thirteen to be accessing the website. 

You Can Opt In or Out at Any Time

Is it Enough?

 The company is doing a good job of informing consumers on what their information is being used for and informing them that their information will only be known if given. However, the site company could improve their protection of consumers' PII. First off, the company could ask those who submit posts if they can publish it to their site rather than doing so anonymously. Those looking to steal information could look up these posts and find the writer's information if they really wanted to do so. Also, the company could provide users of the site with a follow up email telling them what information has been given to them that they have access to after the user has provided their email to the company for any reason. All in all, Chipotle does a great job of informing customers that their information is used responsibly and that they strive to do their best to protect any PII. However, just as with all other companies, there is room for improvement in protecting the information from third parties finding it out.

Remember, Always be aware of information you provide to companies and whether or not it will be responsibly protected and used.  

 The following will discuss the analytics of my blog to date as this is the last blog post for my fall semester. 

Most Popular Post

On Blogger I was able to track the page views for each of my posts. The post that generated the most views was titled "Marketers: Take Advantage of the New IAB Guidelines, Not Consumers. In this post I discussed the new formats IAB had for advertisements. I believe this post gained the most views because of it's popularity on LinkedIn when my connections and those of my professor viewed it. According to Blogger the post had a total of 58 views. 

 Where My Traffic is Coming From

I was able to use Google Analytics to track where my traffic is coming from for my blog. Majority of my viewers come from Google Chrome, Safari, and Firefox browsers. Desktop users counted for most of my views. However, an Apple iPhone was the most popular device used to access my blog. This could be due to those on LinkedIn going to my blog from the app on their phone or because of the increase in cell phone use across the globe. Globally, I have viewers from a wide variety of countries including the United States, Russia, Japan, the UK, Netherlands, and so on. 

 How I Can Improve Engagement and Reach

In order to maintain my traffic I need to increase the reach of my blog. To do so, I should I post the link to my blog and posts on sites other than my Google+ and LinkedIn, but also on my Facebook, Twitter, and possibly even Instagram. To increase the engagement of my blog I could do two things. One, I could encourage readers to leave comments with their opinion on what I am discussing. Secondly, I could also encourage them to share my posts with their friends and social media connections if they enjoy my post and believe others would as well. 

Moving Forward

As I continue my blog, I will encourage readers to share and comment. I will also strive to have a post at least every two weeks, but I will aim for one every week. In the future, I will also expand the number of companies I blog about to attract a wider audience. Possibly, I will even use content that is more encouraging of interaction such as videos and other forms of rich media. I plan to keep blogging and see how I can improve and learn as I go along. 

Please feel free to comment if you have any other suggestions for how I can improve!  

 Roberts, M., & Zahay, D. (2013). Internet marketing: Integrating online and offline strategies (3rd ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.

 Chipotle. (n.d.). Retrieved November 24, 2015, from https://chipotle.com/privacy-policy

One account. All of Google. (n.d.). Retrieved November 24, 2015, from https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9183587198598570054#overviewstats/src=dashboard

(n.d.). Retrieved November 24, 2015, from https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/#report/visitors-overview/a67191721w103757631p107910632/