Part A My website of choice in this case will be eBay (https://www.ebay.com/). In essence, eBay is “a ‘virtual marketplace’ allowing eMerchants, located anywhere in the world, who have registered with eBay to trade within this ‘virtual world’” (Bardopoulos, 2015, p. 51). Some of the site’s...
Part A My website of choice in this case will be eBay (https://www.ebay.com/). In essence, eBay is “a ‘virtual marketplace’ allowing eMerchants, located anywhere in the world, who have registered with eBay to trade within this ‘virtual world’” (Bardopoulos, 2015, p. 51). Some of the site’s product categories include, but they are not limited to, health and beauty products, toys and videogames, sporting goods, computers and consumer electronics, clothing, cell phones, books, etc.
The site also offers for sale motorcycle and automotive accessories and parts. The website has in place a comprehensive privacy policy that outlines the various ways through which the website may not only gather, but also make use of and disclose customer data. The contents of the privacy statement include; scope and content, global privacy standards, collection, use and retention, choice, access, disclosure, security, important information, and questions or complaints (eBay, 2018).
On the basis of my intensive review of the website’s privacy policy, I submit that the said policy is not only clear, but also reasonable and relevant to the kind of business the website carries out. Some of the statement’s most reasonable parts are: use and retention, disclosure, and security. With regard to use and retention, the website observes that the personal information it collects is used for contact purposes (i.e.
in those instances whereby the company may want to contact a user regarding their account), the enhancement of the services it offers, personalization of experiences (i.e. by way of recommending to an individual items they may be interested in), better service provision and implementation, and mitigation of illegal or fraudulent undertakings. The website also points out that some personal information may still be retained for some time even after closure of account.
This is done so as to ensure that its business model is not used to commit fraud or any other illegal activity. When it comes to disclosure, the company points out that it does not under any circumstances disclose the personal information of a user “to third parties for their marketing and advertising purposes without (a user’s) explicit consent” (eBay, 2017). This is necessary so as to ensure that a user is not inundated by spam emails and unsolicited calls from telemarketers.
On the security front, the website points out that it takes deliberate steps to protect the information of a user via the utilization of “technical and administrative security measures to reduce the risks of loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure and alteration” (eBay, 2017). The relevance of this particular part of the privacy policy cannot be overstated given the significant harm identity theft and related issues could cause a customer. Part B WhatsApp has in recent times become one of the most popular smartphone apps (Marks, 2017).
In essence, WhatsApp “is a chat application (owned by Facebook) that doesn’t require a mobile network – just a WIFI connection” (Marks, 2017). The app has a detailed privacy statement that outlines the information the app collects, how the information collected is used, the information both the user and the app shares and with whom, and the circumstances in which the app may disclose the personal information of a user with third parties.
One key aspect I particularly found to be useful about the app’s privacy statement is an advisory on how a user can go about guarding his or her private information, so as to ensure that what is shared with the outside world is only that which the user is comfortable to share. In essence, the app takes the privacy of the information users provide very seriously.
One indication of this is the fact that no message is stored in the app’s servers – essentially meaning that messages sent are deleted from the said servers on being delivered to the intended receiver (WhatsApp, 2018). Apart from the information the user provides, the only other information WhatsApp collects is meant to enable the effective running of its operations and serve the user better. This includes information relating to usage, device information, cookies, and transactional information (WhatsApp, 2018).
I am, however, convinced that the app ought to have in place a provision.
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