Collecting and Selling Information from Peoples Public Social Media Profiles - Essay Example

IS IT MORALLY PERMISSIBLE FOR DATA COMPANIES TO COLLECT AND SELL INFORMATION FROM PEOPLE’S PUBLIC SOCIAL MEDIA PROFILES? code: Date of submission: THESIS STATEMENT It is not morally permissible for data companies to collect and sell information from people’s public social media profiles. In my view accepting and allowing the practice of selling information from people’s public social media amounts to violating the principles enshrined in the social intimacy. Most of the people submit their vital information to the companies due to trust they have in these companies. It is therefore prudent that the companies should also reciprocate the same by ensuring that their customers or clients’ information is secure and not finding its way to the unauthorized people. By doing this there will be an obvious intimate relationship between the customer and the management of the organization. Information privacy is very vital when it comes to the management of information for various organizations. There are several challenges emanating from the use or reuse of personal information. The advanced technology in the modern society has paused a serious threat to the information privacy in organizations and even leading to data breaches (Boiston, 10) The roles, uses and other practices originating as the effects of social technology really determine the consequences of the system as far privacy of information is concerned. There is always significant importance placed upon the acquisition and utilization of the customer information. During the 1980’s customer revolution was the in thing in many organizations. The main aim for this was to capture and store the data of customers using an advanced system. Establishing an intimate relationship between the customer and the corporations was the main target of the entire system on capturing the customer information. From the utilitarianism philosophical point of view which states that one should act in a manner so as to maximize on the amount of happiness in the world (Eining& Lee,2). Since most of the people all over the world are not happy with the organizations divulging their information to the public, it is therefore wise for the company’s to respect the people’s wish. By doing this the greatest rule of greatest happiness for greatest number of people will be upheld. In as much as the selling of data information obtained from people’s social media could be profitable to the companies but at the expense of the people’s interest. This should instead be ridiculed and objected in the best way possible so as to ensure that both parties very happy without necessarily stepping on each other’s toes. Another main reason why selling of peoples information by the data companies is not morally right is due to the marketing concept. This business philosophy dwells on pursuing long term profitability where the main focus of the organization is to satisfy the customers’ needs. Therefore selling of people’s private information will jeopardize this great objective as there will be a strained relationship between the customer or client and the organizations. In any market orientation set up generation of market intelligence is very vital. This helps the organization to relate the current and future needs of the clients so as they can come up with a formidable strategy to fully satisfy these desires. Some of the important ingredients in the relationship include support for customer values by the top management and integration of both market and customer focus with organizational strategic planning. However one might raise a plausible objection to my argument and instead support the extraction and selling of information obtained from peoples social media by data collection companies. In my opinion this does hold since it amounts to stealing where most people’s information is obtained without their consent. Someone’s information is private and therefore should be treated with the respect it deserves. Professionally it is very immoral for any data company to sell ones information since it might be misused against the person concerned. Well it is very important that the personal data of customers is captured and stored by an organization but this does not guarantee the organization to sell ones information without their consent. By going ahead and selling ones data this is total violation and breach of contract where in most cases the information is supposed to be confidential and only available to authorized people only. By utilizing customer data the organizations are able to establish their marketing efforts to individual customers through increased approach of customer database. All the same this does not mandate the organization to transfer and sell the information to another organization without the prior knowledge and consent of the customer (Boiston, 15). With the continuous growth of computer databases in use for collection, manipulation and storage of customer’s data there is also need for the safeguarding of the same. The main reason is because this technologically mediated collection of information can easily be obtained by unwanted people who have got knowledge of the technological system (Eining & Lee, 10) Even if the use of database is the common phenomenon being practiced by several organizations, customer segmentation is very crucial and has to be practiced. Under customer segmentation the management has to ensure that all the information submitted by the customer is segmented. This could be based on personal and public information boundaries. It is therefore the duty of the organization to protect the vital information provided by the customer at all times. In case of any transaction concerning the personal data of the customer then the organization has to notify the customer and seek his or her opinion. Despite the strong argument of mass customization by some economic philosophers I still rescind on the opinion that the information should be privatized by the concerned organization. This is just to guarantee security to the customer and even cultivate sanity in the ever changing technological world. Since most organizations no longer rely on mass marketing but instead they have adopted target marketing it is therefore prudent that the personal data remains private (Boisot, 14). By doing so only necessary individuals would be allowed to check and analyze ones personal data. In the long run only concerned data collection companies would access the personal data of any one after their consent off course. Security will then be upheld for both the customer and the organization concerned. Letting the data collection companies sell information obtained from peoples social media could be very dangerous in the modern world most sophisticated evils are being propagated (Eining & Lee, 16). They include terrorism, serial killings and even organized bank fraud. The people who are involved in these evils have also gone high-tech and are now employing the use of advanced technology in realizing their goals. By allowing data collection companies to sell information without any control could be promoting these evils indirectly. The argument here is that with private information available one can easily dig into one’s life and plan appropriately on how to propagate evil with an advantage. Finally in my personal view this is not moral and should not be allowed to be practiced anywhere. Work cited Boisot, M. H. (1998). Knowledge Assets: Securing Competitive Advantage in the Information Economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 10-20. Eining, M, & Lee, G. (1998). Information ethics: An exploratory study from an international perspective. Journal of Information Systems, 11(1), 1–17. Read More