Critical Thinking Questions How would you feel if an online company you had made purchases from sold your data to a third party? Would you view it as an invasion of privacy or a betrayal? Or both?
Can You Sell Customer Information[1]
When customers buy products through an online company, they leave a lot of information behind, including their name and address and the types of products they have viewed while browsing. Partner companies often approach businesses to buy this type of data to find out more about customers’ purchasing patterns. But is it right to sell customer information? And even if it is not sold, should it even be used in house?
David Hennessey, professor of marketing at Babson College, believes that using consumer information is a privacy and fairness issue if not a legal one, certainly because, in most cases, people believe they are making purchases anonymously or are somehow otherwise protected.
Hennessey suggests that companies unsure about their right to sell customer data should consult the company’s code of ethics to determine how much information can be used internally and externally. He adds that the company could create its own policy to set standards around customer information and when it should or should not be shared. The American Marketing Association’s set of standards are useful for determining this policy.
Overall, sometimes the most straightforward way to resolve this ethical dilemma is to put yourself in the shoes of your customers.
Critical Thinking Questions
- How would you feel if an online company you had made purchases from sold your data to a third party? Would you view it as an invasion of privacy or a betrayal? Or both?
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