Data Privacy: What is it and How to Protect Your Data?

What is Data Privacy?

Data privacy deals with personal information that is obtained on the web, whether that is personally identifiable information (PII) or personal health information (PHI). It is a branch of data security that focuses on the way that data is handled specifically in regards to consent, notice and regulatory obligations (1). 

Why is it Important?

Data Privacy has become an increasingly important issue for companies to address. Closely held company data is one of a business’ most important assets. Data is useful for mapping company performance, making decisions and solving problems faster, improving overall customer experience and measuring the success of your company (2). It provides market insight and competitive intelligence that can give it an operational advantage in its industry.

Data Breaches Have Consequences

There are a variety of ways that a data breach can affect your company negatively. The first that will come to mind to most people is the financial repercussions of the breach (4).

 

These financial repercussions factor in a few different ways:

  • reimbursing affected clients
  • response efforts for breach
  • investigating the incident.

 

A negative impact that is less notable, but equally devastating is the reputation damage it inflicts on your brand. Regaining customer trust is difficult after a data breach. There will likely be customers lost during that time period as people become much more reluctant to use your company (4). These effects may not be permanent, but the time and cost to repair the damage can be significant, so it is important to not overlook the reputational impact data breaches cause.

The Alarming Rate of Data Breaches

Data breaches have become fairly common in this day and age. In fact, in 2018, it was reported that approximately 1.244 billion people in the US had their data breached. These data breaches resulted in 466 million records being exposed. That year, nearly half (46%) of US firms had reported a privacy breach. And making matters worse, 77% of IT professionals said that they did not have a plan if a cybersecurity incident occurred (3)! With nearly half of firms reporting cybersecurity attacks, there must be an increased sense of urgency, seriousness & awareness given to cybersecurity. Better prevention and resolution plans to buffer attacks require such focus and resolve.

How Can You Protect Your Data?

Now that you understand the negative effects a breach can have on your company, how can you prevent them from happening?

 

Here are a few tips to help secure your data:

 

  1. Employee Access & Education – Employees tend to be the easiest (and first) route for cybercriminals to access your data, so making sure that only authorized employees have access to crucial data is important. In addition, educating your employees about data breaches and the steps that they can take to ensure they’re only clicking on secure links and emails is critical (5). 
  2. Backup Servers – Having backup servers that can replicate your data is a good preventative measure. This will prevent large data loss that could occur from a breach (5). Ransomware attacks (where data is forcefully encrypted and held for ransom) can be alleviated when backup servers are employed.
  3. Obtaining Data Privacy Software – There is a variety of different software, like SiteLock, that you can purchase in order to protect your site against data breaches. The software SiteLock detects and automatically removes malware and other infections. It also has the ability to increase web speed by as much as 50%.

Contact us at 3PRIME to protect your website with SiteLock!

 

Data Privacy isn’t just good policy, it’s brand awareness

Data privacy deals with some of the most important personal information that users can provide online. Obtaining this data is extremely useful for companies, as it factors into a variety of different things that help to improve overall customer experience, determine corporate policies, and business operations. The way this information is being stored and protected is essential for companies.

Cyber attacks that resulted in data breaches have become increasingly common, affecting nearly half of US firms. These breaches can have serious effects on a company’s operations and its brand image. 

Make sure that you have preventative measures and solutions in place so that these types of data breaches don’t happen to you! A byte of prevention is worth 1.244 billion people needing a cure!

 

Sources:

www.varonis.com/blog/data-privacy/

www.towardsdatascience.com/how-important-is-data-for-your-business-c15a35c6935e

www.statista.com/statistics/273550/data-breaches-recorded-in-the-united-states-by-number-of-breaches-and-records-exposed/

www.itgovernance.co.uk/blog/the-damaging-after-effects-of-a-data-breach

www.entrepreneur.com/article/332794

Learning ES6 (FINALLY)

Some amazingly great changes are in ES6, but I wanted to start out simple by highlighting a very useful syntax introduction: the let command.

In a nutshell, let introduces block-level scoping to variables.

What does that mean? I’ll show you:

<script>

var x = 10;

if(x) {
    var x = 92;
}

console.log(x);

</script>

What will happen when you run this snippet? The console will display something similar (literally) to “92”

> 92

Now, if you run this snippet using let like so:

<script>

var x = 10;

if(x) {
    let x = 92;
}

console.log(x);

</script>

console.log will display “10”.

> 10

So, block-level scoping means we can isolate scope within control structure blocks in the same way as we can control scope within functions!

(also, if you haven’t opened up your devtools, now is a good time to do so. then you can copy/paste the code between the <script> tags to run it)

I love this feature. I’m super late to the ES6 party, but better late then never!

App Store Optimization: Wrongs You Need to Avoid in 2016

mobile-App-Store-OptimizationIt takes time to see good things happen. It is far from an outdated phrase when it comes to optimizing mobile apps for better discoverability and business conversion. As far as practices for app store optimization is concerned and developers and marketers equally should know the value of waiting or waiting for good things.

While most data collected last year on app store intelligence and practices to make app marketing more productive indicate the rising horizon of opportunities, the relentlessness and impatience of CEOs and app designers continue. Everyone these days have their eyes set on procuring inbound traffic but this often accompanies losing sight of the bigger picture concerning conversion, retention and engagement. Again this makes us recall the same phrase, wowing people may look lucrative and easy but creating value will take time. Let u discuss below some of the critical mistakes in app store optimization practices that you need to beware with.

Depending on shortcuts

Obviously, nobody knows the exact attributes weighed by Apple and Google in indexing mobile apps in the respective app stores. Though there is an array of aspects like conversion rates, customer retention, engagement and others can impact search rankings to a considerable degree. But how one comes before the other in the ranking is kept private and we have no clue on that. So, all that you can do is to follow the ground rules rather than just trying to grab quick numbers and attention.

There is an array of shortcuts that many app marketers follow in spite of knowing how these harm websites in the long run. Targeting app list through practices like using Google’s web search data, stuffing app title with keyword, purchasing rating and reviews and similar shortcuts and backdoor techniques are likely to offer negative impact on the app.

There is no proven shortcut on targeting lists but contradicting to this notion of quick rise, most such practices actually make detrimental effect on the app store ranking of the apps. Apple with stricter guidelines on app submissions and app listings has already discouraged such practices to a great extent. While no credible sure-shot shortcut is there to help any app get ranking, stricter developer guidelines and refined approach in search ranking is further making it tough for apps to achieve ranks solely on these practices.

What is the role of ASO? It is basically to present your app to connect the audience who require it most. With quick numbers your app can altogether fail to get to the device of your audience. ASO refers to a competitive approach to get in the list with the bigger picture of grabbing users, retaining and converting business from them in mind. Basically it is part of the app marketing effort to generate higher ROI. Shortcuts cannot help you do that.

Stuffing app title with keyword

Stuffing app title with keywords is a cheap shortcut that even in the short run can actually prove detrimental to your app. Many app developers exhaust the word count limit given to them for the app title with keywords. For instance, Apple offers a limit of 255 characters for app title and there are many app publishers who take this opportunity to stuff the app title with keywords exhausting the limit of character count.
An app title with quite a few search friendly keywords will obviously generate huge number of search queries but will it garner a good amount of conversion with this? After getting through a nonsense clutter of keywords, the customer is very likely to view this as a promotional trick and avoid the app altogether. This is what happens with most apps that try to get to the list by long title with stuffed keywords. Both Apple and Google is now serious about making the search results more relevant by rejecting such tricky titles. Besides that, app store users now are wiser about such tricks and they often take this as a warning sign concerning the quality of the app.

Not selling your features

There are too many apps that in spite of having a keyword stuffed app title fail to make a selling point mentioning any of the unique app feature or benefit. App in more than one ways is likely to play the role of an offline business and like any business you need to convince customers about the uniqueness and why one should purchase it. If you have few lines left to describe your product to the prospective customer you need to mention the most saleable aspects and features to boost the chances of conversion.

It is more about covering most relevant search terms instead of targeting every user landing on app store. Users search based on purpose and feature and unless you can convince them on this regard, you are likely to get avoided. You always need to let your users know how the app solves specific problems for them rather than describing the app in vague terms.

About Author:

Juned Ghanchi is the chief marketing officer at Indian App Developers Company; he has extensive experience in community management, lead generation and content strategy. He regularly writes about the innovative mobile app technology which improves our lives and our plate.

The Last Weekly Round up of mobile news from Mutual mobile.

 

Well guys here is my last a weekly Mobile blog post coming from you by Mutual Mobile.  Please feel free to go and signup at mutualmobile.comI apologize for the formatting look, MM changed their format which makes it a pain to copy over in here but here it is, The info is still great.

Starting in a couple weeks you will be seeing new stuff brought to you by my new employer Chaotic Moon.  Please go check us out www.chaoticmoon.com

What To Expect From Apple’s October 22nd iPad Event
The Verge

New iPads are a certainty, but there’s plenty more that Apple could have in store for consumers ahead of the holiday shopping season. Here’s what you should — and shouldn’t — expect from Apple’sOctober 22nd event.

 

NEWS AND INSIGHTS
The New York Times

+

The race for the tablet market has become a full-blown sprint. The intense competition will be highlighted on Tuesday, as Apple, Nokia and Microsoft each introduce new tablets.
The Huffington Post

+

While the Surface 2 is probably most fairly compared to an iPad or high-end Android tablet, the Surface Pro 2’s processing power makes it more like a laptop.
The Verge

+

 While we wait for someone, anyone, to deliver the ultimate smartwatch, what can the best devices available today tell us about perfecting the smart wrist-accessory?
Mobile Commerce Daily

+

Mobile’s immersion in our everyday lives actually provides retailers a valuable opportunity to embrace mobile as an asset and use it to foster the biggest advantage a bricks-and-mortar store has to offer: personalized, superior-level customer service.
TIME

+

Even though Apple really did make the iPad for consumers, Jobs and his team fully expected it to also become attractive to business users.
Consider us your mobile update. Trends, platforms and strategies. Covering the biggest news in mobile, in just around a minute.
RESEARCH
ZDNet

+

Pew Research found that tablet ownership among Americans has now hit the 35 percent mark, up 10 percent from a year ago.
VentureBeat

+

The wearable devices industry, which includes smart watches and glasses, will be worth $19 billion by 2018. That’s a big jump over the $1.4 billion the industry is expected to pull in this year, according to Juniper Research, which produced the numbers.
eMarketer

+

This year, more than half of US adult internet users, or 102.5 million people, will redeem a digital coupon via any device for either online or offline shopping. New data indicates that there was a significant increase in the number of digital coupon users during the first half of 2013.
ReadWrite

+

Apple’s iOS 7 has been available to the public for exactly one month. In that time, about 73% of all iOS users have updated their iPhones, iPads and iPods to Apple’s new operating system, amounting to a little more than 250 million devices.
Forbes

+

iOS dominated as the platform of choice for enterprise app deployment with 98% and 95% share in the June and September quarters, respectively.

Eruption, for the Oculus rift game jam contest has been released!! (Shameless self promotion)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uTMI-E0A-N4

Game Description:
Deep in the bowels of a top secret building of S.T.Z.M.N. research facility a lab assistant works late into the night tending to their quadrant smears. In the lab next door things go horribly wrong with a timeline experiment and in an instant the lab assistant is sucked into the void and transported millions of years into earth’s primordial past.

Our hero, dazed and confused, is shaken back into consciousness by a massive quake. Looking around they are surrounded by a harsh, unfamiliar, and unforgiving terrain. The ground shakes again and our hero looks around in time to see a massive volcano erupting in the distance. As the shockwave hits our hero’s fight or flight instincts kick in and they take off running for their life.

Eruption, is a 2.5D platformer designed to challenge the player to escape the hostile world they find themselves in and make it to safety. The user will be forced to look around and dodge incoming objects from all directions. Players will have to think on their feet running, jumping, and sliding in order to save themselves from almost certain doom.

The path to the end is never as easy as it seems.

Controls:
Left/Right – L/R Arrow keys or A and D
Slide – Down key or S
Jump – Space
(Beta) Zoom out – Ctrl

Eruption!!
Built by myself and 4 other guys for the VR Game Jam (@zach, @sorensilk, Nick, and Tom). Most of us were brand new to Unity and game development so it was a great learning experience. We were up until the deadline last night (2am our time) putting in final touches.

We figured most teams would make first person view games so we decided to mix it up with a 3rd person platformer. We think the end result really works well with the Rift. We placed obstacles above and in front of you to force the player to look around the level and not just stare straight ahead.

Not sure where development is going from here but we’d love feedback.  Please visit the official game posting https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=3879

Google’s Mystery Announcement is a mystery no more!

Well folks today our fearless internet overlord Google made some fresh announcements.

NEW Nexus 7 tablet  will be available in 3 models: the 16gb Wifi for 229, the 32 GB wifi model for 269, and 32 GB LTE model for 349. The Wifi Model will start shipping on July 30th, with the LTE model shipping in “coming weeks”.

Upgraded specs from the last one (which ran pretty damn nice for the $$):

Also announced today brand new version of jelly bean.  Version 4.3 is available today for all google devices and the samsung galaxy.

Key Features:

  • New to Android 4.3: advanced multi-user support, bringing in “restricted profiles”. Restricted profiles lets parents limit what their child’s account can do. (Same thing the kindle has recently been advertising.  Why you say? Cause kindle is android based silly.)
  • Bluetooth Smart, or Bluetooth low-energy.
  • OpenGL ES 3.0 graphics system, allowing for considerably more detail in games; according to Hugo, they’re the first to support it.
  • Watching 1080p content on a tablet is great, but most of the content you get today is actually standard definition. This is because the lack of DRM. With Android 4.3, Google’s introducing hardware-level encryption for DRM. The first group Google’s partnering with this is Netflix, allowing you to stream 1080p netflix content to your Android device.
  • The original Nexus 7, the nexus 4, the galaxy nexus, and the nexus 10 will start to get Android 4.3 today.

Another important update comes to the Google Play store which will begin carrying a comprehensive collection of text books from all 5 major publishing houses. Books can be purchased, or rented for 6 months at a time. Text books will be available in early august.

BUT, the biggest announcement is Chromecast.  Chromecast is a tiny, itty-bitty dongle that runs a simplified version of Chrome OS.  Chromecast integrates into the apps you already use on your tablet, phone, or PC. You push a chromecast button, and it pushes that video to your TV. It’s like Apple’s airplay.  Chromecast will play friendly with the iPhone, not just Android.  You can continue to use your phone independently; once the video is playing on your TV, you can use your phone for other tasks. Even if you sleep the phone, the video keeps playing. You can pause/skip videos from the lockscreen.  If you’ve got multiple devices all connected to Chromecast, Chromecast won’t be tied to any of them. You can pause on your iPhone, for example, pick up your tablet, and immediately take control and begin playing from the same place.

On a side note to the Chomecast stuff.  Myself and another of other dev’s I work with spent a good hour today chatting about this part of the announcement.  The conversation was a bit of an emotional roller coaster ride.  At first we were all stoked simply because we had postalized that Google might announce this type of functionality because its been sorely missing for far too long.  But as we spoke more about how it worked and read in between the tech lines our excitement faded as a feeling of “MEH, its pretty cool but what about this, what about that..” set in.  Its a HUGE step up from the ill fated Google Q that was a major POS but the Chromecast is still missing actual screen mirroring.  WHY GOOGLE WHY!!!!!  So at this point your gonna have to wait for ALL of your favorite app developers to add the Chrome Play button to their apps BEFORE you can play Angry Birds on the big screen but hey for $35 its worth it if you don’t already have a smart TV, playstation, Xbox or Apple TV hooked up (Which covers about 90% of the population).

All that being said, I will let you know in three days time after mine arrives….HA

 

 

This Week’s Must-Read Mobile Headlines // June 24

Once again your weekly collection of Mobile News is brought to you by our friend over at Mutual Mobile

This week, Instagram integrates video to its app in an attempt to defend itself against Vine. But is it a smart move? Plus: new data from Forrester on Glass, a first look at iOS 7, and more.

News and Insights

Video Killed The Instagram Star – TechCrunch, In an attempt to overcome Vine, Instagram has added video. But is it a smart move?

Forrester: Google Glass Will Be the Next iPhone (But Now it’s Just a Newton) VentureBeat, A new report says roughly 21.6M Americans would buy Glass.

A Week With iOS 7: The Search for Innovation Amid Renovation – BGR, Does Apple’s bold new mobile vision pave the way for innovation?

Think ‘Mobile Unique’ To Deliver Mobile Delight – CMO, Move beyond “vanilla” mobile apps, and personalize the experience for users.

Disruptions: Mobile Competition Shifts to Software Design – New York Times, Software, not hardware, is allowing mobile companies to leap over competitors.

Gauging the Natural, and Digital, Rhythms of Life – New York Times, The Big Data health impact of wearables is going to be significant.

Apple Scores $30M iPad Deal With L.A. Schools – Mashable, Los Angeles public schools plan to equip every student with the device by 2014. (If you wanna get a better understanding of what this means to education http://www.redefiningliteracy.com/what-is-ilit)

Research

Smartphones And Tablets Have Revolutionized Consumer Connections – MediaPost, 45.3M US consumers watch video on their mobile phones.

How Mobile Is Shaping Global Digital Behavior – eMarketer, Comparing most popular activities across smartphones, tablets, and PCs.

Online Customer Experience Still Easier to Understand Than Mobile, Say E-Commerce Execs – Marketing Charts, Many execs believe it’s simply harder to deliver positive mobile experiences.

88% of Smartphone Shoppers Have Negative Experiences – Mobile Commerce Daily, “If you don’t do it right, customers will go to a competitor.”

Connected Car Market to Take Off – Mobile Marketer, Over 35M car shipments in 2018 will come with embedded mobile technology.

In response to the whole Snowden PRISM thing. The folks at Codecademy said it right…

Excerpt from http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/17/encrypting-your-email-works-says-nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden/

For my money this hits the nail on the head.  If you call yourself a technologist NONE of this better be a surprise.  Because if it is, your not a very good technologist. For those that aren’t Continue »

This Week’s Must-Read Mobile Headlines // June 17

Bought to you from our friends over at Mutual Mobile

Last week, Apple held its annual World Wide Developer’s Conference. We dive into some of the biggest announcements: a groundbreaking new “flat” redesign in iOS 7, new Macs, iOS for cars, and more.

News and Insights

Apple Debuts iOS 7, OS X Mavericks, and New Macs: Everything You Need to Know – The Verge, All the top news from WWDC, in one place.

Cook Unveils Mission Statement, iOS 7 Gets Colorful, New iPhone – Forbes, A few of the things that happened around Apple this week.

How Apple’s iOS 7 Changes Everything For App Designers – ReadWrite, Everything app designers know has been tossed out the window.

Why iOS 7 Looks Unfinished (Spoiler: It’s Because It’s Unfinished) – TIME, A collection of top mobile analysts’ thoughts on the new OS.

Why Do Super-Elite Customers Get All The Attention? – Forbes, How to use big data and mobile to delight both the “super-elite” and regular joes.

With Wearable Tech, Human Behavior is Now a Design Problem – GigaOM, Wearable devices will be able to influence our behavior in ways both good and bad.

Saks Deploys 2,000 iPads in Stores, to Launch OFF 5th Website in Fall – RIS, Saks’ multi-channel shoppers spend 3-4x what single-channel shoppers spend.

Mobile Marketing Isn’t About Screens or Devices, It’s About Behavior – AdAge, Consumers move fluidly across devices and platforms; brands must do the same.

Research

[Infographic] Mobile at WWDC – The Push, The buzz, the snark, the hits, and the misses from Apple’s annual conference.

A Day in the Life of a Mobile Consumer – Flurry, How consumers are using apps throughout the day, and how it relates to wearables.

82% of eCommerce Merchants Not Tracking Mobile Sales – Mobile Commerce Daily, The majority of merchants don’t know whether a purchase comes from mobile or PC.

One-Third of Americans Now Own Tablet Computers – New York Times, The fastest-growing segments: affluent households, college graduates, parents.

Smart Mobile Devices Account for Small Share of TV Viewing – eMarketer, Only 2% of total TV viewership occurred on a tablet or smartphone.