all my customers information.  Now, I love my Shopify store that's attached to my Tech Wellness site. It's beautiful and makes it easy for my customers to shop. 

An OFFER To Sell (Data?) My Facebook Invitation

This is my first year using Shopify for e-commerce so I was really excited when they sent me a special Beta opportunity to offer Free Shipping if I would sell on the Facebook Marketplace:

FaceBook gets Customer Data. TechWellness gets $5.00 Toward Shipping!

I loved the idea of a Free Shipping Promo and being able to reach so many Facebook users-- to show them my products to make living with technology safer and healthier--and with a great offer. How could I refuse?  I pressed "Get Started" immediately.

Except then, as I went through the setting to connect my store to Facebook, I became upset when I read what Facebook would be allowed to access from the Tech Wellness store:

Aw, c'mon, really?  To participate in this Facebook offer I have to give them ALL my customer's data?  Their names, addresses and what they bought?  Yes. That was the deal.  And, not just the customers who purchased through the Facebook Marketplace. I would have to allow Facebook to see information about my customers from the last 60 days!

I was truly surprised. But not in a happy way.

Even with all the supposed enlightenment that Facebook now has? 

With everything that's happened this year, the hearings, the testimony and the media coverage about Facebook using our data, are they really REQUIRING all my shoppers' data?

IMPORTANT: You, as my customer, would have no idea that I had opened up YOUR data to be used by Facebook--especially for purchases NOT made on Facebook Marketplace.

Facebook Will Erase The Data When I Disable Facebook

Even if and when I would have "disabled the app" as the fine print stated, to have all my customers' data removed from Facebook-there still would have been the time period that Facebook had access to my customers' behavior, address etc.

So bottom line, Facebook wants to collect very detailed information about you to make you easier to reach by advertisers on Facebook who are looking for very specific people.  

When I advertise on Facebook (and yes, I have advertised my posts and some of my cool stuff) I find that I'm able to target very specifically.  I've heard from marketing experts that Facebook uses all this data it can access to be able to reach customers in a very specific way:  If an advertiser wants to reach married shoppers, between the ages of 25-35, who live in Montana, with a cat, and that just bought an IPhone... Facebook can isolate that group of people and send them a specific ad! That's DATA IN ACTION!

We Have The Power--OK, SOME Power

I take my protecting my customers' data--and their privacy very seriously. I believe every one of us has the responsibility to take our privacy into our own hands and protect it--and now we can to some extent.

On May 25th the General Data Protection Regulation from the EU took effect.  You remember getting that wave of emails about how every company was updating their privacy policy?  Well it was because this regulation impacted how all companies collect and handle personal data about their European customers.

The really good news is that now ALL Shopify stores can request to have data about any of their customers deleted.

Here's the process:

First, if my customers request to see their data, Shopify will compile it and send it to me so I can forward it to my customers. It's nothing that they don't know--it's just very interesting to see that someone is storing their name, address, what they bought their type of credit card etc.

Then, if a customer requests, I can pull up their name from my store list and ask Shopify to have their information deleted.

 Shopify has a 6 month charge-back window but I can request that the information be deleted in an expedited fashion.

As my pledge to my customers privacy, I will be requesting removal of all data at approximately 30 days  after shipping our lovely Tech Wellness products that to particular customer.

Here's what we see as Shopify account owners see about our customers--my sweet husband bought from me when I first opened the store on my website: