Information

Technology,
Marketing Practice,
and Consumer
Privacy: Ethical
Issues
Ellen R. Foxman and Paula Kilcoyne
Source:
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/30000116?uid=3738824&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21104423
288317


When voting records were generated and maintained
manually, events such as the one described would have been unlikely or
impossible. However, the computerization of records containing
information about individuals has made it much easier to use
information collected for one purpose (billing or credit verification) for
other purposes, and in some cases to generate detailed consumer
dossiers from separate information collection occasions. Marketers
increasingly have used information technology to segment marketers
and reach potential buyers.
Consumers have expressed increasing concern about
erosion of their personal privacy resulting from the collection and use
of personal information by state and federal government agencies and
business institutions. Most recently, a Time Magazine survey has found
that 76% of consumers are very or somewhat concerned about the
amount of personal information collected and computerized by the
business and the government, and 93% feel that companies that sell
this information should be legally required to ask permission from
individuals before doing so. These findings suggest that the majority
of U.S. consumers feel their privacy is threatened, or violated
outright.
This consumer concern has led to analysis and policy
evaluation by both legislators and computer professionals. Government
hearings have focused on the proper uses of information about
individuals and weighed the social costs and benefits of restrictions on
the collection and use of such data. Computer scientists have
addressed the ethics of using information technology and made
recommendations for the proper use and security of computer
databases.
Surprisingly, marketers have done little public evaluation
of the implications and effects of adopting this new technology. A few
individual firms have developed policies on the use or nonuse of mailing
list information. The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has
developed a list of consumers who do not want to receive direct mail. A
few researchers have sought to define consumer privacy, examined
threats to it in a marketing context, or included consumer privacy as a
factor of identifying legal and political risks of using computer
information technologies. However, a recent extensive review of
ethical and legal issues in marketing does not mention privacy or
discuss issues relating to the use of the collection and use of consumer
information. In general, the ethical dimensions of marketing practices
involving consumer privacy have not been examined in marketing
journals. The purpose of our article is to begin to remedy this lack.