Question

Explore the legal and ethical constraints on implementing relationship marketing using the digital media. Think about things like privacy, use of data and net neutrality. Please think critically and support your thoughts with examples. Remember to cite any / all sources.

Answer 1

One might argue that the situation just described is no different from the moral issues revolving around the production, access, and control of any basic necessity of life. If one party has the privilege of the exclusive production, access, and/or control of some natural resource, then that by necessity prohibits others from using this resource without the consent of the exclusive owner. This is not necessarily so with digital information. Digital information is nonexclusory, meaning we can all, at least theoretically, possess the same digital information without excluding its use from others. This is because copying digital information from one source to another does not require eliminating the previous copy. Unlike a physical object, theoretically, we can all possess the same digital object as it can be copied indefinitely with no loss of fidelity. Since making these copies is often so cheap that it is almost without cost, there is no technical obstacle to the spread of all information as long as there are people willing to copy it and distribute it. Only appeals to morality, or economic justice might prevent the distribution of certain forms of information. For example, digital entertainment media, such as songs or video, has been a recurring battleground as users and producers of the digital media fight to either curtail or extend the free distribution of this material. Therefore, understanding the role of moral values in information technology is indispensable to the design and use of these technologies. Every action we take leaves a trail of information that could, in principle, be recorded and stored for future use. For instance, one might use the older forms of information technologies of pen and paper and keep a detailed diary listing all the things one did and thought during the day. It might be a daunting task to record all this information this way but there are a growing list of technologies and software applications that can help us collect all manner of data, which in principle, and in practice, can be aggregated together for use in building a data profile about you, a digital diary with millions of entries. Some examples of which might be: a detailed listing of all of your economic transactions; a GPS generated plot of where you traveled; a list of all the web addresses you visited and the details of each search you initiated online; a listing of all your vital signs such as blood pressure and heart rate; all of your dietary intakes for the day; and any other kind of data that can be measured. As you go through this thought experiment you begin to see the complex trail of data that you generate each and every day and how that same data might be efficiently collected and stored though the use of information technologies. It is here we can begin to see how information technology can impact moral values. As this data gathering becomes more automated and ever-present, we must ask who is in control of collecting this data and what is done with it once it has been collected and stored? Which bits of information should be made public, which held private, and which should be allowed to become the property of third parties like corporations? Questions of the production, access, and control of information will be at the heart of moral challenges surrounding the use of information technology. First of all, we need to answer what we mean by implementation of relationship marketing using the digital media. The simple meaning of this is acquisition and maintenance of client relationship using digital sources such as internet, mobile banking, in this case client does not need to visit the brick and motor establishment of any company to maintain his relationship with the client. There are legal and ethical constraints of using the digital media for relationship marketing. For example :- Privacy and use of data :- If a company is trying to connect a client using digital media, the company need the e-mail of the clients and most of the countries around the world have laws that requires the company to obtain individual permission before a company can collect the e-mail id or other personal information. So a company make sure to ask a user with "I agree to provide personal information " while a user install or use the digital mobile app of an company. Other issue is net neutrality :- concept of net neutrality is that internet service providers should all internet data as same regardless of their origin , source or destination.So while a company uses the digital media for relationship management or marketing it should ensure that the content of the company is available across the internet service providers. Few example of misuse of digital media for relationship marketing is the illegal way to acquire customer e-mail id or contact through various fake website and using the information to acquire the clients.