Some 40 percent of companies that have already installed CRM systems will start giving more weight to privacy issues, the research firm said, even as they continue to support personalization and customer data-gathering methods.

"This is going to require rethinking of how information is gathered, how customers can access and control that data, and how enterprises can safeguard it from parties that might want it but shouldn't have it," said Gartner vice president Scott Nelson.

According to Nelson, pending legislation may bring privacy issues to the forefront for businesses using CRM in 2002, but customers increasingly will demand protection from intrusive online data collection.

Phoning Home

Still, the likelihood is that privacy laws will take a long time to be passed, much less implemented.

Consider the Federal Trade Commission's recent proposal to allow consumers to join a single national list to prevent unwanted phone calls.

The FTC also made other proposals dear to the hearts of privacy advocates. One would bar telemarketers from blocking identifying information from caller-id boxes. Another would prohibit telemarketers from exchanging, selling or buying customer billing information.

Ultimately, however, privacy proponents are bound to be disappointed. At best, these proposals would not take effect for at least a year because the FTC must solicit and consider comments from the public before developing specific regulations. By that time, they probably will be altered dramatically.

Pushing Buttons

Business interests are also leery of the FTC's agenda, but for different reasons.

The government agency announced its intention to move forward with a national "do not call" list in October, along with plans to increase enforcement of existing privacy provisions. But when the FTC retreated from an earlier move to establish legislation designed to protect online privacy, it was soundly criticized in a report by Forrester Research (Nasdaq: FORR).

The FTC's new approach, the consulting firm said at the time, "pours gasoline on the fires of the privacy debate ... Addressing privacy one technology or business practice at a time only adds to the confusion.

"By taking on telemarketing in this new agenda, the FTC has expanded the scope of the privacy debate to include existing offline practices," Forrester said.

Customer Always Right

According to Gartner, consumers will most likely be the ones to shape corporate privacy policies, instead of legislators or government agencies.

"Enterprises will find that customers want to see why all this data is being gathered, and they will expect the CRM experience to reflect intelligent use of personal data," Nelson said.

"Otherwise, enterprises will not be in a position to ask for the data at all. In addition, many enterprises have been working to put the basic infrastructure in place, and now they are ready to build on it."