Consumers today have high standards for determining what products meet their specific needs. As such, a satisfactory shopping experience is defined as one where consumers can quickly find what they’re looking for. Electronic commerce, or e-commerce for short, has addressed these high standards, allowing consumers to input search terms to narrow down an online retailer’s inventory to the item they’re looking for, and subsequently place orders from the comfort of their own home. However, online retailers must be quick in matching consumers with the products they want; if the customer feels that their search isn’t going well, they will simply leave the online retailer to complete a transaction with a competing retailer. This race to satisfy consumer needs gave rise to personalized recommendations, which are programmed suggestions for products that the online retailer believes consumers should consider buying. Consumers were startled as a result and became concerned with their privacy, questioning what information companies utilize to form these newfound recommendations. However, consumers should not be worried about their privacy; rather, they should continue engaging with these personalized recommendations in order to expand their search and bring themselves closer to a product of their interest, thus leading them to have a better online shopping experience.
The debate of privacy for generating personalized recommendations takes two standpoints: online consumers and companies. On the one hand, online consumers believe that companies invade their privacy by using sensitive information to generate these personalized product recommendations. On the other hand, companies argue that their personalized product recommenda...
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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...
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The most lucrative business on the Internet is marketing. Companies have come up with ingenious ways to generate revenue with very targeted advertising. Each company has their unique method to identify their consumers, some more complicated than others. For example, on a website geared to new mothers the advertisements would reflect that by advertising for baby diapers or formula. This type of targeted advertising is understood and acceptable. The consumer benefits by having advertisements in their interests and the vendor has a higher likelihood of making a sale. The Internet has introduced novel ways to track consumer habits and interests thereby creating smarter advertising. Microsoft employs their browser Internet Explorer using “cookies” to track user habits. Cookies are pieces of text stored by a user’s web browser, they are sent back and forth every time a user accesses a web page. These can be tracked to follow web surfers’ actions. Cookies are used to store...
Did you know that almost everything you do on the internet is being tracked and recorded in some way? In the Article, George Orwell… Meet Mark Zuckerberg, by Lori Andrews, Andrews talks about how behavioral advertising, which is the tracking of consumer’s online activities in order to bring custom-made advertisements, is a topic that is concealed to many people and can cause damage. Search engines like Google store the searches you have made and in 2006 there were search logs released which had personal information that people were judged by (Andrews 716-717). Data aggregation is the main way Facebook makes its money. Andrews believes that it’s an invasion of privacy and is not known well enough by the public. This article is aimed at young and new internet users that are ignorant of the possible dangers on the web. Lori Andrews is successful at informing novice users about the dangers of behavioral
...are of the consequences of the terms of agreement that they are checking. The consumer believes that only simple data is being kept and used by the company. They are unaware that through the sophisticated use of data mining very personal information is being shared with numerous companies. Each company causes further layers of information to be mined and shared, thereby truly breaching a consumer’s level of confidentiality.
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The companies like Google have the idea that they know what an individual likes from the information the users submit. The primary challenge, in this case, is that social media users are seen as incapable of making rational decisions about their choices. For example, on may be walking down a street during lunch hours and from nowhere, they get a notification that there is a restaurant in their surrounding that is offering a certain meal during those times. Moreover, Jacob Silverman asks the question as to why social
It is alarming to think of a person or company buying and selling one’s personal information. Big Brother Gets A Makeover: Behavioral Targeting And The Third-Party Doctrine (Brotherton, 2012, p. 555), points out “What few Internet users realize is that, during the time they surf the Web, they are subjected to constant surveillance by potentially hundreds of different private companies.” In today’s online environment and new technology, it is clear this type of activity happens all the time.
If you have ever used the internet than you probably know that almost every website today asks for some type of your personal information. Today, identity theft is becoming more and more common. Websites used to promise more security for consumers, and today websites are no longer offering the same protection. With more and more people shopping online, criminals are gaining access to innocent shoppers’ identities easier than ever. Companies are using consumer information to help target the individual for sales of things they like. Many people are worried that these companies have gone too far and that the information is an invasion of privacy.
Current consumers have become leery of businesses collecting their data to use for personalized targeted campaigns so it is important for Target to weigh their data practices against consumers’ preferences. A study from the University of Pennsylvania that considered public sentiment of data sharing found that, “84 percent strongly or somewhat agreed that they wanted to have control over what marketers could learn about them.” (Singer, 2015). Therefore, consumers want the benefits of personalized services without the feeling that businesses are misinterpreting or making assumptions about them based on the information being collected. Consumers want to feel that businesses like Target care about their interests, which can be demonstrated by
Eli Pariser, author of the “Filter Bubble” provides insight on how the personalized web is shaping our identity. He argues that what is good for consumers are not necessarily good for citizens (18). The Internet provides us with the answers to our questions, but perhaps this is the problem at hand. Today, we live in a filter bubble that “fundamentally alters the way we encounter ideas and information” (9). On December 4th, 2009 the era of personalization began; our computer monitors became one-way mirrors reflecting consumer interests (3). We assume that when we Google a term, we all see the same results, but algorithm suggests what is particularly best for you (2). Our behaviour has become a commodity to be bought and sold where each click signal sends a stream of information to be auctioned off to the highest commercial bidder (7). Therefore, the Internet is masked as a democratic public sphere that strategically tailors our search results to thereby limit an individual’s access to information.
The issue on privacy is extremely controversial in today’s world. As the United States’ use of the internet, a global web of interconnected computer networks, expands, so does its problem with privacy invasion. With the U.S. pushing for new laws governing internet use, citizens are finding their privacy being pulled right from underneath them. Web users are buying and selling personal information online as well as hacking users for more information. One may argue that there is no such thing as privacy on the internet, but privacy is a right among Americans, and should be treated as such.
User Privacy is a sensitive topic at the moment. It is one of the most important factors a person should consider before they give their information away over the internet. Every click or selection you make online is being stored and permanently kept on record that includes anything you may have Googled, investigated or researched. Some people believe that user privacy is dead (Rambam 2011). More and more we are being encouraged to give away more information about ourselves online, and the greatest intrusion into our online activities comes from social networking sites. The lack of user privacy on social networking sites has led to dramatic changes in people’s lives such as targeting by the media and marketing researchers, the buying and selling of user information and other unethical forms of privacy invasion. Online activity is increasingly being used as e...
Papacharissi, Zizi, and Jan Fernback. "Online Privacy And Consumer Protection: An Analysis Of Portal Privacy Statements." Journal Of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 49.3 (2005): 259-281. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
...try to ensure Internet security. More practically, marketers must try to target consumer groups more accurately. Minimizing unwanted consumer contacts may reduce the intensity and visibility of some dimensions of privacy issues. Last, marketing researchers must attempt to define privacy operationally. Much has been said and written about consumer privacy, but we still have little understanding of what information consumers consider private, why they consider it private, and whether this set of information changes situationally or in response to other factors.