CRM programs are not however considered universally good - some feel it invades customer privacy and enable coercive sales techniques due to the information companies now have on customers - see persuasion technology. However, CRM does not necessarily imply gathering new data, it can be used merely to make "better use" of data the corporation already has. But in most cases they are used to collect new data.

Some argue that the most basic privacy concern is the centralised database itself, and that CRMs built this way are inherently privacy-invasive. See the commercial version of the debate over the carceral state, e.g. Total Information Awareness program of the United States federal government.