Question

1. Marketing researchers have access to a great deal of information about consumers. What kinds of pressure might be brought to bear on a marketing researcher that might cause ethical dilemmas?
2. In 2005, a new federal law allowed consumers once-a-year free access to their credit reports. Many consumers who accessed their credit reports were surprised by the amount of information collected. What can marketers and marketing researchers do to minimize consumers' privacy fears?
3. What role do YOU (as the consumer) play in protecting your own privacy? In other words, what can you do to protect your privacy and what are ways that we give up access to our privacy?

Answer 1

Pressure might be brought to bear on a marketing researcher that might cause ethical dilemmas:

The most serious problems in today' market is data confidentiality and invasion of privacy of consumer.As nowadays companies collect consumer information through various sources and share them for the purpose of target advertising.Many of the companies are also in the practice of selling their consumer information with associates.When consumer provide their data to the company they are unaware that their data might be shared by the company with their affiliates.These practices y the company may affect the consumers freedom.Market researchers have to conduct their research and collect information based on the specification of the purpose and should not use for any other purpose.It becomes the responsibility of the researchers to protect the data of the consumers from any unethical sharing.

Steps that marketers and marketing researchers can take to minimize consumers privacy fears:

i.Data security:The company shall maintain a secure database of their company's consumers data and should protect it from unethical sharing among partners and associates.

ii.Check:Conduct a periodic check on the data and database and ensure that sufficient controls are in place to ensure the protection of data

iii.Relevance:Collect only those data from the consumer which is relevant and discard the irrelevant data.By this method the data that is to be collected will get reduced and the burden of the data will reduce significantly.

iv.Company policy:Have a good privacy policy in place and implement it so that the consumer can gain confidence that their data is secured and in the best hands.

Protecting your own privacy:

i.Set a limit on data sharing that is to be done on the social networking sites.

ii.Avoid phishing emails

iii.Keep your device secure and protected and avoid accessing unknown websites.

iv.Avoid connecting to public Wi-Fi as that can pose threat to your privacy.

v.Before sharing data on any of the website do read their privacy policies to find out if any threat is posed.