Scribd
Upload
200 views

Chapter 8: Ethical, Social, and Political Issues in E-Commerce

Ethics

Uploaded by

Maria Antoinette Portillo Felix
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
200 views

Chapter 8: Ethical, Social, and Political Issues in E-Commerce

Ethics

Uploaded by

Maria Antoinette Portillo Felix
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 17

Chapter 8: Ethical, Social, and

Political Issues in E-commerce

Chapter 8
Ethics, Law, and E-commerce

Copyright © 2010
2011 Pearson
Pearson Education,
Education, Ltd.
Inc. Slide 8-1
Understanding Ethical, Social, and
Political Issues in E-commerce
 Internet, like other technologies, can:
 Enable new crimes
 Affect environment
 Threaten social values

 Costs and benefits must be carefully


considered, especially when there are no
clear-cut legal or cultural guidelines

Slide 8-2
A Model for Organizing the Issues

 Issues raised by Internet and e-


commerce can be viewed at individual,
social, and political levels
 Four major categories of issues:
Information rights
Property rights
Governance
Public safety and welfare

Slide 8-3
Basic Ethical Concepts

 Ethics
 Study of principles used to determine right and wrong courses of
action

 Responsibility
 Accountability
 Liability
 Laws permitting individuals to recover damages

 Due process
 Laws are known, understood
 Ability to appeal to higher authorities to ensure laws applied correctly
Slide 8-4
Analyzing Ethical Dilemmas

 Process for analyzing ethical dilemmas:


1. Identify and clearly describe the facts
2. Define the conflict or dilemma and identify the
higher-order values involved
3. Identify the stakeholders
4. Identify the options that you can reasonably
take
5. Identify the potential consequences of your
options
Slide 8-5
Candidate Ethical Principles

 Golden Rule
 Universalism
 Slippery Slope
 Collective Utilitarian Principle
 Risk Aversion
 No Free Lunch
 The New York Times Test
 The Social Contract Rule
Slide 8-6
Privacy and Information Rights

 Privacy:
 Moral right of individuals to be left alone, free
from surveillance or interference from other
individuals or organizations
 Information privacy
 Subset of privacy
 Includes:
 The claim that certain information should not be
collected at all
 The claim of individuals to control the use of whatever
information is collected about them
Slide 8-7
Privacy and Information Rights (cont.)

 Major ethical issue related to e-commerce


and privacy:
 Under what conditions should we invade the
privacy of others?
 Major social issue:
 Development of “expectations of privacy” and
privacy norms
 Major political issue:
 Development of statutes that govern relations
between recordkeepers and individuals
Slide 8-8
Information Collected at
E-commerce Sites
 Data collected includes
 Personally identifiable information (PII)

 Anonymous information

 Types of data collected


 Name, address, phone, e-mail, social security

 Bank and credit accounts, gender, age, occupation,


education
 Preference data, transaction data, clickstream data,
browser type
Slide 8-9
Social Networks and Privacy

 Social networks
Encourage sharing personal details

Pose unique challenge to maintaining


privacy
 Facebook’s Beacon program

 Facebook’s Terms of Service change

Slide 8-10
RIP: Facebook’s Beacon
 Facebook's advertisement system that sent data
from external websites to Facebook,
 allowing targeted advertisements and allowing users
to share their activities with their friends.
 Certain activities on partner sites were published to
a user's News Feed.
 Born: November 6, 2007 with 44 partner websites.
 Dead: September 2009.

Slide 8-11
Profiling and Behavioral Targeting

 Profiling
 Creation of digital images that characterize online individual and
group behavior

 Anonymous profiles
 Personal profiles
 Advertising networks
 Track consumer and browsing behavior on Web
 Dynamically adjust what user sees on screen
 Build and refresh profiles of consumers

 Google’s AdWords program


Slide 8-12
Profiling and Behavioral Targeting (cont’d)

 Deep packet inspection


 Business perspective:
 Web profiling serves consumers and businesses
 Increases effectiveness of advertising, subsidizing free
content
 Enables sensing of demand for new products and services

 Critics perspective:
 Undermines expectation of anonymity and privacy
 Consumers show significant opposition to unregulated
collection of personal information
 Enables weblining

Slide 8-13
The Internet and Government
Invasions of Privacy
 Various laws strengthen ability of law enforcement
agencies to monitor Internet users without
knowledge and sometimes without judicial oversight
 CALEA, PATRIOT Act, Cyber Security Enhancement Act,
Homeland Security Act

 Government agencies are largest users of private


sector commercial data brokers
 Retention by ISPs of user data a concern

Slide 8-14
Legal Protections

 In U.S., privacy rights explicitly granted or


derived from
 Constitution
 First Amendment – freedom of speech and association
 Fourth Amendment – unreasonable search and seizure
 Fourteenth Amendment – due process
 Specific statutes and regulations (federal and
state)
 Common law

Slide 8-15
Informed Consent

 U.S. firms can gather and redistribute


transaction information without individual’s
informed consent
 Illegal in Europe
 Informed consent:
 Opt-in
 Opt-out
 Many U.S. e-commerce firms merely publish information
practices as part of privacy policy without providing for
any form of informed consent

Slide 8-16
The FTC’s Fair Information
Practices Principles
 Federal Trade Commission:
 Conducts research and recommends legislation to Congress

 Fair Information Practice Principles (1998):


 Notice/Awareness (Core)
 Choice/Consent (Core)
 Access/Participation
 Security
 Enforcement

 Guidelines, not laws

Slide 8-17

You might also like