Is a company responsible for 100% of their content?

[zeronyne]

I’ve attached two photos here. This has angered me beyond all reason because this is a phenomenon I’m intimately familiar with, and Fender took the low road. To make the “positive” choice of having Fender NOT sell my data, you have to turn the switch RED. And it defaults to selling your personal data. 
 

This is not a matter of style. I’ve been a UX designer for 23 years working with only Fortune 100s, high value brands, and government agencies. Not a single time has anyone suggested or proposed using red for the positive choice. This is clearly an attempt at deception. And defaulting to acceptance is a giant UX faux pas…the equivalent of farting in an elevator.

 

So you can see in these images that they outsourced this page. Do you think the marketing manager should be held accountable for this choice? What about Fender? Or do you not care either way if they collect and sell. I’m genuinely curious. I’ve seen privacy discussions here before. What say you in 2023?

[Anderton]

I agree that it's confusing. And defaulting to selling data is, shall we say, inconsiderate. Also, in the bottom image, the X sure seems to imply not selling information. However, I can see red as the "don't sell my data" color option because of the traffic stoplight reference.

 

Perhaps you could enlighten me about something. When they sell information for personalized advertising, is that like an AdSense thing? So if I say "don't sell my data," I  get ads anyway but they're for gardening supplies, cat food, and bad TV shows? Whereas if I consent to selling data, then I get ads for guitar, strings, concerts, etc.? I always wondered about that.

 

 

 

[zeronyne]

Selling to ad services is one avenue for revenue, and those services use that data plus the data it has collected from cookies to try to deliver relevant content. Where it gets nefarious, in my opinion, is when they sell to data aggregators that then link disparate datapoints that maybe you did not intend to link. Maybe you use a different email for LGBTQ+ friendly sites, but you used the same email or phone number or credit card as with your main identity. Now they are inexorably linked forever, and you Facebook ads may deliver ads you really don’t want associated with you. 
 

And your data is worth a lot of money, which is why so many drop shippers will offer loss leaders for the cost of shipping…and your email address, phone number, shipping address, and credit card number. I could almost clone you with just that info and a public record search.

[o0Ampy0o]

I am very visual. I was born a natural visual artist at my core. I also happen to have a little more sense of alternative perspectives so it is easier for me to see things someone else's way, regardless of whether I agree with them or not. I tend to see more than one possibility in the ways things can be interpreted. It annoys some people, the authors, that I do not immediately get their communication the way they intend it. Usually people think they have done a good job expressing themselves. And they don't like having to clarify. This, while many love an opportunity to express their opinion, but on their terms.

 

That said, switch position here takes priority. I don't do it for a living and it is not a scientific study but it seems to me that most, if not all, of these eye candy toggle switches operate with the right being activated and the left being deactivated. So in this case the text reads "Do not..." so the switch being right means you are choosing that they not do something.

 

Defaulting to "sell my info" means it is gray and I would not see a conflict because of the red before I saw that the switch was grayed and to the left. Even though it could have been done so the default is "Do share my info" in the on / right position at least one of my banks has me say no if I don't want them sharing my info just like Fender is doing. They automatically share it unless I tell them not to and I suspect that is deliberate because many will not look for that notice in the mail every year.

 

Like the Fender example, my iPhone only has color if the command is in the activate mode. Otherwise the switch is gray (B&W). Although I can only recall the colors of my iPhone (gray / B&W-green) turning from gray (B&W) to red does not matter to me at all because even though B&W are technically colors (at least in pigment / subtractive vs. light / additive) they are considered subordinate to red which everyone considers an actual color (whether subtractive or additive).

 

You said the default is to share information. Defaulting to "Sell / Share my info" means it is gray not red so I am less likely rather than more likely to see the red switch as off when glancing at the screen. The option is not to opt in or out of analytics which seems to follow a standard. Generally, I have seen the option of sharing personal information approached in a variety of ways.

 

One of my banks just uses their company logo color scheme and the issue or green being associated with go/yes and red being associated with stop/no is not present. Here red matches the Fender logo. I would not be surprised that Fender has not considered this color scheme thoroughly. I work for a Fortune 500 corporation who give very little thought to their software.