There are many marketing and actions/integrations automation tools out there. But what about privacy? Is it really safe to give them the key of our business. It is safe to provide our credentials (logins) to those online tools/companies? Should we really provide them the logins to our apps, stores, mails, social media accounts? Can we trust them? And if you do so, aren't you afraid that one day all your data will simply be public or for sale. Or that this data will be misused for actions without your knowledge (spam, ...). What you think about that ? A.Asylort
It's a balance of risk and reward. Chances are you don't have the funds to sue them if they breach their contract so you're hoping they're building a real business and not after a short term gain.
You need to carefully check references for this vendor. Ask for at least three references of clients and that list should include a past customer and an existing customer.
I think the OP was referring to tools like hootsuite - they're not going to be giving out references, you have to rely on their history and hope it hasn't been/won't be bought by a scoundrel.
Ah, I see. The safest thing to do would be to go with only the most established (and reviewed) of these vendors and, whenever possible, use temp email addresses, limited logins, and cancel the email and change your logins if and when you stop using the tool. We recently had to open up some of our software to a new vendor, so we created a special email account in our company domain solely for the vendor and also gave limited login access to one or two systems that they needed to use.
Yes, I like this approach. In fact, by default, we should be able to set clear limits to what they can do. Otherwise, it's like giving your apartment keys to the cleaning lady plus your bank card with the code and your passport. I admire those who trust these companies and hackers enough. Do you know other ways to keep under control what they can do?