Commercialism and Privacy
Commercialism and Privacy
Summary:
Industries gather information about consumers, and advertise to consumers that go greatly beyond what is acceptable. We do not own our own information, and Spam, like calls from telemarketers invade our privacy. However, there are market solutions to these problems that will hopefully allow us to regain what is ours.
Introduction:
Commercialism has intruded into just about every part of our existence, and e-commerce has propelled this intrusion exponentially. Commercialism is not necessarily bad in itself, but because of industries’ insatiable desire to gain the competitive advantage, they gather information about consumers, and advertise to consumers that go greatly beyond what is acceptable. Firms have invaded our privacy, and consumers are fed-up with this invasion. Consumer rebellion will open the doors for “market solutions” to these “market problems”.
Anonymity:
Every time we sign up for a free email account, fill out a survey on line, or request “free” information, we give away a little bit of information about ourselves. Simply visiting a web site provides valuable information to industry about ourselves. Each incident in many cases is not significant, but the accumulative effects of the information can become serious intrusions on our privacy. The accumulation of this information provides firms profiles of existing and potential customers. Consumers are becoming very wary of this loss of privacy and anonymity, and feel that these profiles belong to the consumer, not the firm.
One method of gathering information about a consumer is the Internet Service Provider. ISPs knows who you are and knows every web site you visit. Consumers have complained about this, so some ISPs have advertised that they will not to sell your web surfing information. AOL at one time stated that they do not gather information on their customers web activity at all, but they may have changed their mind, because there is no evidence of this claim on line. As people become more concerned about their privacy, demand for ISPs that provide the consumer greater anonymity while web surfing will dramatically increase. ISPs are not the only companies that gather information. Other firms besides ISPs use various means to track consumers activities on the Internet for sell and use. Now, companies like Anoymizer.com and Evidence Washer sell software that protects your Internet privacy. The fact that these and many other companies sell this sort of software shows there is a growing demand for privacy protection. Using ISPs that do not collect information about you, and using software to prevent other companies from collecting information about your web activities are only two possible solutions.
The most powerful market solution to privacy on the Internet will occur when people stop voluntarily giving away information about themselves. Once consumers become wise to getting “free” service or information from a web site, they will stop giving up the information.
Spam:
Email used to be one of the most efficient means of [next page]