Importance of URL Masking To Prevent From Data Collection Frauds
Importance of URL Masking
As per Digital 2020 reports, it is estimated that nearly 60% of the world’s population is online and experiencing the power of internet. One of the key factors that has propelled the involvement is the penetration of web-enabled devices accelerating rapidly around the globe. The emergence of internet penetration has geared up a new level of online fraud. The increasing and recurring incidents of online fraud activities have raised challenges to conduct online surveys. Fraud activities not only compromise the quality of collected data but also impacts the brand name and business.
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With the arrival of regulatory changes such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, businesses handling customers data are being scrutinized more and more. Data collection through online surveys brings its own challenges. Among these challenges, one of the major ones is to protect and supervise the collected data from multiple fraud approaches. The quality of data is comprised when scammers enter into surveys and make the most of the loopholes in the supervision of survey work. To protect the data collected through surveys, it is necessary to mask the actual URL. When this feature is employed, the links for online surveys are automatically encoded and adds a layer of strong security so that no one can access the data.
What Is URL Masking in Market Research tools?
URL Masking, also known as Domain masking, is basically an act of hiding a certain part of the survey URL to hide elements such as affiliate IDs and tracking tags. It is an active form of masking the display of sensitive data to conceal specific data unless required for the task.
When the URL is masked, it will not reflect the actual URL/Domain name anymore. URL masks the real address of your survey so that when suppliers share the survey URL to respondents, they will see the masked URL on their browser.
URL masking solutions help organizations improve data protection and comply with internal and legal requirements to restrict access to specific data.
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For example, let’s consider a client who wants to run a survey to learn about its customers preferences and their expectations. The client will create a questionnaire and share the survey URL to the respondents as:
https://teamarcs.com/Index?cid=aQtmLuoS&id=%2Kidentifier%3D
If we enable URL protection, it will change the URL so that when the respondents will enter the survey, they will see a masked URL in their browser as:
https://teamarcs.com
Why To Mask A Survey URL?
In the context of surveys, masking a URL is important while running the survey in order to avoid duplicate responses to your surveys. URL masking encrypts the survey so that no other user can read the URL itself and enter it into the survey, thus mitigating the risk of exposed respondent data. By masking the URL, you build trust with the respondents and they feel safe as their data and personal answers are secured.
Advantages of URL Masking
- You can share the masked link on any platform and are ready to collect data for research.
- Shrunken links look better than long and complicated links. You can add your brand name to the link so as to make them appealing to the users.
- Domain masking helps to hide the tracking tags in the URL.
Why use HTTPS when conducting surveys?
HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is the secured enhanced version of HTTP. HTTPS encrypts the survey URL so that no respondents data can be disclosed. It secures the survey link by not storing the IP or geolocation data, thus making them attractive for market research projects. There are lots of reasons to collect responses anonymously, say if a person wants to provide feedback without fear of getting judged for his honesty. Another example includes medical research where privacy is most concerned.
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Ensuring Your Survey Is Secure
Over the past decade, the use of online surveys to collect data from respondents has skyrocketed. With advancements in technology, online surveys are a great way to check the pulse of consumers. This makes data collection easier and better. But it is vital to ensure that the data collected are safe, secured, and protected.
Teamarcs has built their robust platform in such a way that keeps the data safe and your reputation intact. Our platform comes with powerful URL protection and is an ideal digital solution that can provide total control over the project with a powerful workflow that facilitates smooth collaboration among project stakeholders.
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