Marketing Issues Associated With Online Data Collection

Marketing

Issues Associated with Online Data Collection by Advertisers;

There is an increased interest and use of information which can be collected from a person's digital footprint. Individually, the single pieces of information may not provide any great insight to a behavior patterns, but with firms able to collect and aggregate data, they are able to create profiles which will be used for commercial purposes. This may be seen as good sense, when considered from a commercial perspective, as much of the information collected is not personal, as the information may be seen as non-intrusive, such as occupation, home value, There is also data collected that is more personal, such as the type and amount of spending on different products, from luxury goods through to cat food (Singer np). The digital footprint information, when aggregated, can provide a great deal of insight into the profile of a potential customer, especially if the profile is compared to an ideal or desired profile for a particular firm or product, including scores that refer directly to financial viability.

The agencies, such as e-Bureau, are able to provide these services as data collected is not protected (Singer np

). Data which may predict financial status, viability and potential spending is collected and stored in a manner that works around the Fair Credit Reporting Act (Singer np), so not only is there a large amount of data collected, there are not the same rights to inspect or correct erroneous data. If it is not protected it may be argued it is not private. However, looking at a concrete example; if one looks at the collection of data of a similar nature in the physical world it could only be gathered by physically following someone around (or using surveillance equipment), watching what they are doing and recording it, making note of the purchases they make (type of goods and value). In the real world this would be seen as an invasion of privacy, and could even be classified as stalking. Furthermore, with the use of personal data, which may be inaccurate, used to identify target consumers for specific goods or service advertisements, there is a high potential to cause significant discrimination. When personal data can be used in this manner, to create classifications and result in discrimination it further adds to the argument that the data is private rather than personal. However, the final argument for the personal nature of the data is the way that the agencies themselves protect it; not only the data itself, but what data they are collecting and how they are using it; the agencies see it as private. Therefore, it can be argued this is private data that should be protected by legislation rather than left in the hands of potentially maverick data agencies.