Disclosure, Endorsement, and Identity in Social Marketing

Social marketing is among the newest advertising trends now emerging on the internet. Using online social networks such as Facebook or MySpace, marketers can send personalized promotional messages featuring an ordinary customer to that customer\u27s friends. Because they reveal a customer\u27s browsing and buying patterns, and because they feature implied endorsements, the messages raise significant concerns about disclosure of personal matters, information quality, and individuals\u27 ability to control the commercial exploitation of their identity. Yet social marketing falls through the cracks between several different legal paradigms that might allow its regulation-spanning from privacy to trademark and unfair competition to consumer protection to the appropriation tort and rights of publicity. This Article examines potential concerns with social marketing and the various legal responses available. It demonstrates that none of the existing legal paradigms, which all evolved in response to particular problems, addresses the unique new challenges posed by social marketing. Even though policymakers ultimately may choose not to regulate social marketing at all, that decision cannot be made intelligently without first contemplating possible problems and solutions. The Article concludes by suggesting a legal response that draws from existing law and requires only small changes. In doing so, it provides an example for adapting existing law to new technology, and it argues that law should play a more active role in establishing best practices for emerging online trends. trademark, right of publicity, privacy, consumer protection, reputation, social network

Attitudes towards Online Shopping: Application of the Theory of Planned Behaviour

A wide-range of products are available for consumers to shop online conveniently, anytime from anywhere in the world. While e-commerce has shown exponential growth over the past decade, there is evidence in literature that suggests consumer resistance and reluctance in engaging in online shopping, mainly for privacy and security reasons. Using the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), this paper aims to investigate consumer attitudes towards online shopping in an emerging economy, South Africa. This study followed a descriptive and quantitative research method. Primary data was collected from a sample of 215 consumers in Gauteng, South Africa. Correlation analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM) were used to analyse the data. The results of the study indicate that trustworthiness, privacy and security concerns determine consumer attitude toward online shopping, which, in turn, influences online shopping behaviour. Beliefs about self-efficacy in conducting online transactions influenced consumers’ perceived behavioural control, which ultimately influenced the online shopping behaviour of consumers. Furthermore, the study found that normative beliefs are the immediate antecedent of subjective norms, which, in turn, influence online shopping behaviour. Marketing practitioners need to address the issues of real and perceived privacy issues and the security concerns of current and potential online shoppers if they are to fully benefit from the spoils of the internet

Marketing, Consumers and Technology: Perspectives for Enhancing Ethical Transactions

The advance of technology has influenced marketing in a number of ways that have ethical implications. Growth in use of the Internet and e-commerce has placed electronic cookies, spyware, spam, RFIDs, and data mining at the forefront of the ethical debate. Some marketers have minimized the significance of these trends. This overview paper examines these issues and introduces the two articles that follow. It is hoped that these entries will further the important marketing and technology ethical debate

Mining social network data for personalisation and privacy concerns: A case study of Facebook’s Beacon

This is the post-print version of the final published paper that is available from the link below.The popular success of online social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook is a hugely tempting resource of data mining for businesses engaged in personalised marketing. The use of personal information, willingly shared between online friends' networks intuitively appears to be a natural extension of current advertising strategies such as word-of-mouth and viral marketing. However, the use of SNS data for personalised marketing has provoked outrage amongst SNS users and radically highlighted the issue of privacy concern. This paper inverts the traditional approach to personalisation by conceptualising the limits of data mining in social networks using privacy concern as the guide. A qualitative investigation of 95 blogs containing 568 comments was collected during the failed launch of Beacon, a third party marketing initiative by Facebook. Thematic analysis resulted in the development of taxonomy of privacy concerns which offers a concrete means for online businesses to better understand SNS business landscape - especially with regard to the limits of the use and acceptance of personalised marketing in social networks

Dominant Search Engines: An Essential Cultural & Political Facility

When American lawyers talk about essential facilities, they are usually referring to antitrust doctrine that has required certain platforms to provide access on fair and nondiscriminatory terms to all comers. Some have recently characterized Google as an essential facility. Antitrust law may shape the search engine industry in positive ways. However, scholars and activists must move beyond the crabbed vocabulary of competition policy to develop a richer normative critique of search engine dominance. In this chapter, I sketch a new concept of essential cultural and political facility, which can help policymakers recognize and address situations where a bottleneck has become important enough that special scrutiny is warranted. This scrutiny may not always culminate in regulation. However, it clearly suggests a need for publicly funded alternatives to the concentrated conduits and content providers colonizing the web

Big Brother is Listening to You: Digital Eavesdropping in the Advertising Industry

In the Digital Age, information is more accessible than ever. Unfortunately, that accessibility has come at the expense of privacy. Now, more and more personal information is in the hands of corporations and governments, for uses not known to the average consumer. Although these entities have long been able to keep tabs on individuals, with the advent of virtual assistants and “always-listening” technologies, the ease by which a third party may extract information from a consumer has only increased. The stark reality is that lawmakers have left the American public behind. While other countries have enacted consumer privacy protections, the United States has no satisfactory legal framework in place to curb data collection by greedy businesses or to regulate how those companies may use and protect consumer data. This Article contemplates one use of that data: digital advertising. Inspired by stories of suspiciously well-targeted advertisements appearing on social media websites, this Article additionally questions whether companies have been honest about their collection of audio data. To address the potential harms consumers may suffer as a result of this deficient privacy protection, this Article proposes a framework wherein companies must acquire users\u27 consent and the government must ensure that businesses do not use consumer information for harmful purposes

Privacy and Health Information Technology

The increased use of health information technology (health IT) is a common element of nearly every health reform proposal because it has the potential to decrease costs, improve health outcomes, coordinate care, and improve public health. However, it raises concerns about security and privacy of medical information. This paper examines some of the “gaps” in privacy protections that arise out of the current federal health privacy standard, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability (HIPAA) Privacy Rule, the main federal law which governs the use and disclosure of health information. Additionally, it puts forth a range of possible solutions, accompanied by arguments for and against each. The solutions provide some options for strengthening the current legal framework of privacy protections in order to build public trust in health IT and facilitate its use for health reform. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) enacted in February 2009 includes a number of changes to HIPAA and its regulations, and those changes are clearly noted among the list of solutions (and ARRA is indicated in the Executive Summary and paper where the Act has a relevant provision)

Empirical Study of Privacy Issues Among Social Networking Sites.

Social media networks are increasing their types of services and the numbers of users are rapidly growing. However, online consumers have expressed concerns about their personal privacy protection and recent news articles have shown many privacy breaches and unannounced changes to privacy policies. These events could adversely affect data protection and compromise user trust, thus it is vital that social sites contain explicit privacy policies stating a comprehensive list of protection methods. This study analyzes 60 worldwide social sites and finds that even if sites contain a privacy policy, the site pages may also possess technical elements that could be used to serendipitously collect personal information. The results show specific technical collection methods most common within several social network categories. Methods for improving online privacy practices are suggested

Legal Solutions in Health Reform: Privacy and Health Information Technology

Identifies gaps in the federal health privacy standard and proposes options for strengthening the legal framework for privacy protections in order to build public trust in health information technology. Presents arguments for and against each option

Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Ethics of Marketing Analytics

Abstract The concept of big data has influenced the marketing field in numerous ways. By having access to more information about their consumers than ever before, marketers are presented with a unique opportunity to make the marketing process more streamlined and effective than ever; however, this also creates a challenge in understanding how this targeted advertising affects the brand’s perception by consumers. This study looks at the concepts of data marketing and re-targeted ads from three aspects. First, are marketers being as effective as possible to ensure they are sending the right advertisement, to the right customer, at the right time? Second, are marketers being as efficient as possible when choosing the correct platform to reach their target customers? Third, are companies remembering the ethical components of collecting this information on consumers, and ensuring they understand when consumers feel specialized advertising becomes an invasion of their privacy? To answer these questions, I first performed secondary research in the form of a literature review. From surveying the scope of the subject, I then performed primary research by conducting in-depth interviews and a survey. The results show that there are two distinct type of consumers: one group who is accepting of these re-targeted advertisements and welcoming of the specialized marketing, and a second group who is skeptical of this form of marketing and concerned over privacy issues. Marketers must be aware of these two distinct types of consumers and ensure they are choosing their advertising methods carefully to ensure an efficient utilization of resources and to make sure they are not presenting a detriment to their brand for the consumers who do not want catered advertisements