Data Mining Case Study

1635 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Data mining ethics

Data Mining and Consumers’ Information Since both consumers and businesses advantage from the use of data mining, each party has to honour the right of the other one in order to keep an ethical function of the data mining relationship between the two of them. Long ago, data mining was only about essential and voluntary information collected from customers who were aware that their information is being gathered. Nowadays, the ethical issues raised are whether the data collected will be used against customers’ rights, and whether it will become a part that is accessible in the future by others. The strategies proposed by Payne and Trumbach, with regard to Data mining(1) and consumers’ information, propose that in the right moral structure, data mining can be ethically effective and protective to consumers’ right. Six principals are needed for a productive ethical data mining strategy: anonymity, disclosure, choice, time limits, trust and accuracy of data (Payne & Trumbach, 2009). First, let’s discuss the issue of data mining and anonymity. This principle is based on the idea of limiting personal identifying data. It argues that to have an ethical data mining, customers should be allowed to be anonymous whenever they have the chance. For instance, a client can purchase an online order only by using a username, password and zip code (Danna & Gandy, 2002). Therefore, this client will get the same exact service like anyone else without disclose his/ her personal identity. This strategy is effective and helpful since it protects the customer from unwanted exposure, and at the same time, serves his needs by giving him/ her same shopping experience as any other client. On the other hand, some people might argue that in some situation, a... ... middle of paper ... ...them make the best choice in terms of their personal data. Fourth issue is data mining and time line that contains how long consumer personal information will be used. The next issue is about basic, guarded and extended trust. This strategy ethically guards the costumer from any damage caused by disclosure since it requests not to misuse the consumers’ trust. It also assists the relationship among parties that work together explicitly. The last issue discussed is the ethical principle of accuracy in data mining. Ethical data mining requires serving consumers as individuals and not to rob them from accurate service because of an unfitting clumping system used by the firm. To sum up, all the previous six principles work ethically well together successfully to serve the consumers’ needs, to protect their rights of privacy, and to give them the best costumers’ services.

Show More
Related

  • Business Management Case Study

    1938 Words  | 4 Pages

    Chet Craig is the Central Plant Manager of the Norris Company. He started as an expediter in the company's eastern plant and was quickly promoted to Production Supervisor in three years. After two years, he was promoted to Assistant to the Manager of the Eastern Plant. Five years later, Chet was transferred to the central plant as an Assistant, and after one month, was promoted to his current position.

    Read More

  • Julie Zhou's Essay 'Where Anonymity Breeds Contempt'

    654 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the essay “Where Anonymity Breeds Contempt” the author Julie Zhou demonstrates the negative impact Anonymity in the internet has had on human beings. Following with a convincing argument for unmasking these “trolls” of the internet.

    Read More

  • Spokeo Case Study

    1084 Words  | 3 Pages

    According to the Federal Trade Commission, a data broker is a company that packages consumer information from numerous sources and sells this consumer information to other businesses or people (Katz, par 2). Throughout this paper, I will employ course materials, class debates, and lecture notes to analyze a data broker company operating under the name of Spokeo. First, I will also evaluate how and why data brokers, particularly Spokeo, package and sell consumer information. Then, I will examine various characteristics of Spokeo with regards to Daniel Kahneman’s Prospect Theory. Thirdly, I will consider and analyze aspects of Spokeo taking into account William Prosser’s four legal aspects of privacy. Finally, I will discuss what packaging and selling consumer information may mean for consumers’ attitudes and

    Read More

  • Online Privacy: Is It Really Possible?

    1848 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the Engineering and Technology Journal, two engineers, Gareth Mitchell and Guy Clapperton, gave their thoughts on both sides of the privacy issue. Is gathering information violating personal privacy? They made their arguments using currency as a metaphor for personal information and online services a product. Mitchell argues the case that giving out personal information is “too high a price to pay” (Mitchell, 2013, p. 26). He says that despite the option to opt out of cookies and certain information, many sites are more covert and make their opt out option less accessible than a pop up asking to opt out. The site makes it hard for the Internet user to say no to being tracked. Mitchell warns the reader to take more consideration into what information they are giving away and that “privacy is not to be taken for granted” (Mitchell, 2013, p. 26). Getting information from the Internet would mean tra...

    Read More

  • Big Data Case Study

    1865 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Human and Ethical Aspects of Big Data, quickly outlines an array of ethical problems that big data has had and will continue to develop in the upcoming years in our society. The author begins by giving an example of the earliest use of big data, the census. Census data can provide a plethora of benefits to society, representation in government, civil planning, such as road and water treatment, as these take years to construct and having the population and these necessities, Time align is crucial. As the author, uses the example of the internment of Japanese-Americans in 1943. Here is big-data supposed to help the citizens of the Unites States, the big data that is supposed to be private. Now in 1943, big data being used to discriminate

    Read More

  • Data Aggregation

    678 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of the biggest problems that affect everyone is data aggregation. The more the technology develop, the powerful and dangerous it gets. Today there are many companies that aggregate a lot of information about us. Those companies gathering our data from different sources, which create a detailed record about us. Since all services have been computerized whether it is handled directly or indirectly through computers, there is no way to hide your information. We used computers, because they are faster, better, and accurate more that any human being. It solved many problems; however, it created new ones. Data does not means anything if it stands alone, because it is only recoded facts and figure, yet when it organized and sorted, it become information. These transformed information. Data aggregation raises many questions such as, who is benefiting from data aggregation? What is the impact on us (the users)? In this paper I will discuses data aggregation and the ethics and legal issues that affect us.

    Read More

  • Online Data Tracking: An Invasion of Privacy?

    1364 Words  | 3 Pages

    The personal connection Americans have with their phones, tablets, and computers; and the rising popularity of online shopping and social websites due to the massive influence the social media has on Americans, it is clear why this generation is called the Information Age, also known as Digital Age. With the Internet being a huge part of our lives, more and more personal data is being made available, because of our ever-increasing dependence and use of the Internet on our phones, tablets, and computers. Some corporations such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook; governments, and other third parties have been tracking our internet use and acquiring data in order to provide personalized services and advertisements for consumers. Many American such as Nicholas Carr who wrote the article “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty, With Real Dangers,” Anil Dagar who wrote the article “Internet, Economy and Privacy,” and Grace Nasri who wrote the article “Why Consumers are Increasingly Willing to Trade Data for Personalization,” believe that the continuing loss of personal privacy may lead us as a society to devalue the concept of privacy and see privacy as outdated and unimportant. Privacy is dead and corporations, governments, and third parties murdered it for their personal gain not for the interest of the public as they claim. There are more disadvantages than advantages on letting corporations, governments, and third parties track and acquire data to personalized services and advertisements for us.

    Read More

  • Essay On Privacy And Privacy

    1406 Words  | 3 Pages

    If the data collectors notify the user that their data will be collected, and how will they use these data. Meanwhile, they also give the user the right to choose if they want their data to be collected or not. In my opinion, this is not the invasion of the user privacy. By the data protection law, it states that people are aware of how information collected about them will be used. However, most of the people do not have enough knowledge about data protection law, and the serious effect of the Cookies behind their operator. CNN conducted a survey showed that most the public, about 56%, did not know that websites and advertisers have the capability to track their activities by placing cookies on their hard drives [4]. As users themselves, we are on the heels of increasing our vigilance right now, because many unethical merchants will gain their benefit by violating our privacy through blind spots of our knowledge. Schools or the news media should also pay attention. Schools should provide courses to educate students, so that, students can go back and tell their families and friends. News media should also report more relevant things to make people more

    Read More

  • Protection of Consumer Privacy in E-Business

    1281 Words  | 3 Pages

    The digital era arrives. Blue Book information editorial board and Social Science Literature Publishing House (2010) pointed out that “China's e-commerce transaction volume reached 3.85 trillion yuan in 2009”. Utilisation of e-business services was also high amongst Hong Kong people. About 98.3% of all persons had used e-business services such as Octopus Card and Automatic Teller Machine (Census and Statistics Department, 2009). One of the pitfalls for the development of e-business, however, is the concerns on consumer privacy. According to Green’s (1999) survey, 54% of respondents had decided not to purchase a product because of a concern on overuse of personal information collected in the e-business transaction. This essay examines the circumstance on protection of consumer privacy in e-business. As e-business is surging by astronomical number and consumer information is a kind of property, the protection of consumer privacy in e-business becomes significant. This essay begins with the causes of the problem, and then move on to analyse the effects. Lastly, the essay concludes with the solutions to the problem.

    Read More

  • Participatory Culture Essay

    1186 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...e same time, the time has come to raise consciousness, support research and standard-setting, and prepare model codes for those systems that do employ privacy-enhancing technologies. The opportunities for individuals to customize privacy preferences, research should be conducted to evaluate alternative arrangements should be generated. On top of that, the digital applications should provide transparent criteria, including ease of understanding, adequacy of notification, compliance with standards, contractual fairness and enforceability, appropriate choice of defaults, efficiency relative to the potential benefits, and integration with other means of privacy protection. Particular attention should be paid to uniformity of protocols across different industries and applications, so that consumers are not overwhelmed by a pointless diversity of interfaces and contracts.

    Read More

  • Privacy and Security Issues in Data Mining

    1885 Words  | 4 Pages

    There are various kinds of definitions about what data mining is. The authors in [1] define data mining as “the process of extracting previously unknown information from (usually large quantities of) data, which can, in the right context, lead to knowledge”. Data mining is widely used in areas such as business analysis, bioinformatics analysis, medical analysis, etc. Data mining techniques bring us a lot of benefits. Business companies can use data mining tools to search potential customers and increase their profits; medical diagnosis can use data mining to predict potential disease. Although the term “data mining” itself is neutral and has no ethical implications, it is often related to the analysis of information associated with individuals. “The ethical dilemmas arise when data mining is executed over the data of an individual” [2]. For example, using a user’s data to do data mining and classifying the user into some group may result in a variety of ethical issues. In this paper, we deal with two kinds of ethical issues caused by data mining techniques: informational privacy issues in web-data mining and database security issues in data mining. We also look at these ethical issues in a societal level and a global level.

    Read More

  • Companies, Ethics, and Privacy of Personal Information

    4566 Words  | 10 Pages

    However, the same personal data is being compromised and eroding privacy. Companies have been getting bolder in their attempts to gather, share and sell data. The latest trend is outsourcing data to third party companies for data processing, which can be done at a lower cost. One of the main problems with this approach is that a lot of very sensitive data is being sent, which could be harmful in the wrong hands. Most companies require their customers to "opt-out" to prevent their data from being shared with a company's affiliates. This process requires the customer to explicitly tell the company not to share their data, which is usually in the form of a web site or a survey sent in the mail. These surveys are often thrown away by consumers, so they don't even realize that they're giving the companies a green light to sell and share their data.

    Read More

  • Data Security And Data Privacy

    1396 Words  | 3 Pages

    Data privacy is not equal to data security. Data security ensures that data or information systems are protected from invalid operations, including unauthorized access, use, exposure, damage, modification, copy, deletion and so on. Data security can’t guarantee data privacy and vice versa. Figure 1 shows the relation between data security and data privacy. A represents the situation where data privacy is violated while

    Read More

  • Case Study: Direct Marketing

    719 Words  | 2 Pages

    Companies must adhere to the Data Protection Act (1998) which protects consumers’ data privacy. According to the EU Data Protection Directive (1995), there are eight principles of which the data collection should follow:

    Read More

  • Ethical Issues in e-Commerce

    1594 Words  | 4 Pages

    Foxman, E. R., & Kilcoyne, P. (n.d.). Information technology, marketing practice, and consumer privacy: ethical issues. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 12(1), 106-119.

    Read More

More about Data Mining Case Study

Open Document