The Ethics Of Online Retailing Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Ethics Of Online Retailing - Research Paper Example The first category of interactions involves disclosure statements and requests for information issued by marketers to prospective customers. These are legitimate statements and requests that aim to help businesses better tailor their products and services to their customers’ needs. Secondly, there are exchanges of information voluntarily undertaken by consumers, with the expectation that they will be subsequently contacted by the respective marketer. Third, there is the capture of information not volunteered by the consumer. Not all information gathered this way is unethical, because there is much that marketers may observe concerning consumers during the course of their transaction, but such capture must not be intrusive against the privacy of the consumer. The fourth aspect concerns information practices or the manner by which the gathered information (from both marketers and consumers) may be used by both parties. The past two decades of computer technology application has triggered a flurry of academic research concerning the proper use and abuse of the new medium. Internet capability has presented so many enticing prospects for business and especially it's marketing function that, as is often the case, the potential for use is accompanied with potential for abuse. Roman and Cuestas (2008) polled web consumers for their views about which unethical acts they have the greatest concern over. There are four such types of abusive practices, namely: security, privacy, deception and fulfillment or reliability. In the study, Roman and Cuestas (2008, p. 648) described each of the issues in the following manner: The researchers developed a rating scale by which they sought to measure the relative degree of consumers’ concern.