The Venu App has two critical concerns that need to be addressed to ensure long term success by gaining and retaining users. One of these key concerns is privacy. Privacy is such a large concern for the application because the nature of the app involves active data collection using users' smart phones, which are incredibly personal devices. In order to best address the privacy concerns that our users may have, the Venu application needs to keep our users informed about exactly how their data will be used and stored, in a quick & easy to understand way that gives them confidence in our product without having to spend hours reading complex legal documents.
The Venu application will be actively collecting location, accelerometer and microphone data from the users' personal devices. If done in the wrong way, or with malicious intent, this data could easily be used in a way that would compromise our users' expected level of privacy. Users are aware of the way that this data could be used, thus it is incredibly important to ensure that Venu can earn their trust quickly, before they may decide not to continue with using the service.
In order to quickly gain users' trust, Venu will apply an unorthodox method of presenting our privacy policy, and informing users how their data will be used. Most large companies present their users with a large legal document outlining its privacy policy. These documents are large, tedious, and often left unread by users. This aspect of privacy policies can be overcome by large companies, whose brands have already gained a level of trust by the user, however this is an aspect that Venu would not have early on. Regardless of this it would be better practise to give users the confidence that they understand the ins and outs of their privacy while using the Venu service. In order to better communicate its privacy commitments, Venu will employ a more visual, easy to read and comprehend privacy section. This will include pictures, simply worded text instead of technical legal terms, and features that let users change how the app collects their data if they feel too concerned. This will benefit our users in two ways: It will give them the confidence that they understand how we use their data, and it will give them the reassurance that they fine-tuned our data collection to meet their personal preferences. This concept has been explored by a researcher at the Law School in Standford University, who propose some strategies which are similar to the ones which will be employed by Venu.