Databases and Privacy: An Ethical Issue for Marketers The continuing debate between consumers, consumer rights' groups and marketers as to who actually owns consumers' data is becoming more divisive and debated. Marketers attest that once a customer purchases a product or service, opts in with their personal information either to complete a transaction or request services, the information becomes the company's asset as part of their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and databases (Milne, Bahl, 2010). Consumers and consumer advocacy groups claim that the management of this data jeopardizes not only their identities but their financial standing with credit reporting agencies as these systems are often breached (Dolnicar, Jordaan, 2006).

The Ethics of Managing Personal Data

The ethical debate over how best to use customer data in marketing databases has progressed from the use of opt-in to gain useful information for serving customers (Connon, 2002) to reselling it without the customers' approval or knowledge (Dolnicar, Jordaan, 2006). As...

The many problems at Facebook are a case in point, in fact this social network is almost like a worst practices study in how not to manage customer data. From the unauthorized use of the Facebook Beacon that tracked user's activity off the site, and then reported back which sites they went to so Facebook could drive up advertising rates, to the blown marriage proposal that they orchestrated, Facebook know how to compromise customer data very well (Freeman, 2011). Facebook was tracking the activity of one of their young male customers as he checked for engagement rings. His activity…