Blog 5

Many people today connect digitally through the web transferring infinite amounts of data. From bank accounts to personal pictures, the use of electronic devices have given notice for ethical boundaries when it comes to marketing and personal data. For example, one of the most common information mobile phones are gathering today is location. GPS technology has enabled users to get location/direction information, use social media to check into places, and share personal information on where one is going. As mentioned in Apple, Google Collect User Data, findings showed that “some of the most popular smartphone apps use location data and other personal information even more aggressively than this —in some cases sharing it with third-party companies without the user's consent or knowledge.” This can be very dangerous in terms of ethical behavior for marketing companies. The precise data collected of personal information for long periods of time can bring one to question, why? Why do these companies need and store this information?  Are users protected? Will this data be sold to third parties?  These concerns are important factors marketers need to keep in mind when asking for and using people’s information. If people stop trusting their information being available, they will no longer provide it and will intern only hurt these data thirsty marketers. What relates to me most is the information I make public through Facebook and Twitter.  I personally would not mind marketers gathering information I make public for research, however a boundary must be created as to what extents they go to.  I look at public information as more of a ‘user beware’ sense. It should be common sense that whatever information you make public on your Facebook or Twitter is public to anyone in the world. Settings on privacy will give you higher levels of privacy. Facebook and Twitter both declare this clearly in their Privacy Policy:

“Our Services are primarily designed to help you share information with the world. Most of the information you provide to us is information you are asking us to make public. This includes not only the messages you Tweet and the metadata provided with Tweets, such as when you Tweeted, but also the lists you create, the people you follow, the Tweets you mark as favorites or Retweet and many other bits of information. Our default is almost always to make the information you provide public but we generally give you settings (https://twitter.com/account/settings) to make the information more private if you want. Your public information is broadly and instantly disseminated.”

-          Twitter Privacy Policy

“Choosing to make your information public is exactly what it sounds like: anyone, including people off of Facebook, will be able to see it. Choosing to make your information public also means that this information:

·         can be associated with you (i.e., your name, profile picture, Facebook profile, User ID, etc.) even off Facebook

• can show up when someone does a search on Facebook or on a public search engine
• will be accessible to the games, applications, and websites you and your friends use
• will be accessible to anyone who uses our APIs”

-          Facebook Privacy Policy. 

A new trend which marketers are gathering data through is Apps.  When downloading different apps on your mobile phone, you are inadvertently supplying marketers and developers with one of the most wanted commodities in today's economy: personal data.  These mobile apps can gather numerous amounts of data that marketers will use in numerous ways to target their audience. The article, Selling You on Facebook  by Julia Angwin and Jeremy Signer-Vine describes how the “appetite for personal data reflects a fundamental truth about Facebook and, by extension, the Internet economy as a whole: Facebook provides a free service that users pay for, in effect, by providing details about their lives, friendships, interests and activities. Facebook, in turn, uses that trove of information to attract advertisers, app makers and other business opportunities”. (Angwin and Signer-Vine) This vast market for data is and will become a researcher’s primary focus on collecting data in a quick and low cost way. For this reason I believe that it’s the user’s responsibility to protect what information they want to keep private. I also believe that major social media providers like Facebook and Twitter need to be better protected against any unethical marketing behavior. One particular instance that comes to mind is the “Girls Around Me” Iphone app. This app accessed public location information from Facebook check ins and Foursquare Check ins to find the location of nearby women, and even view their Facebooks, Twitters, etc. This absurd and unethical behavior is the kind of protection we need from marketers who want to distribute data. “In the absence of data-usage laws or norms, some tech companies feel unconstrained about using information in new ways that can seem creepy.” (Angwin and Signer-Vine) This app obviously created an outrage as women don’t like to be stalked by random creepy men.

Another way many markets will indirectly obtain Facebook information through their software by asking users to “Sign in with Facebook”.  For example, “Apps are required to ask people's permission to access their Facebook data. But the way they ask plays on a fundamental human tendency—namely, that people who see frequent warnings come to disregard them. Science has a word for this: habituation. Habituation occurs when people become accustomed to simply pressing the "yes" button when faced with an alert or warning.” (Angwin and Signer-Vine) When another program such as Pandora or Pinterest is logged in through Facebook, that program has direct access to all the information you provide on Facebook.

Overall, I think it is imperative that users of digital media stay aware of their public information and are informed of all privacy policies. Marketers need to be sure not to cross and ethical boundaries when obtaining data because in the long run, a loss of trust by users will completely demolish their efforts.

Selling You on Facebook  by Julia Angwin and Jeremy Signer-Vine

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303302504577327744009046230.html?mod=e2tw