Please write a response to Nathan’s discussion below.
One of the practices that I find particularly troubling is companies using your internet searches to tailor adds to you. It feels somewhat predatory in nature to spy on consumers in order to market to them. An example of this happening in my life has been since my wife has gotten pregnant in June, she has been seeing countless ads on her social media marketing baby products to her. As many do, we have used the internet to look up information on having and raising babies. This was particularly frustrating last year after my wife and I lost our baby late term and she was still seeing those ads. The companies buying our search data have no context as to what’s going on in our life’s or why we are looking something up. Consumers have a right to privacy, and businesses have a duty to protect that privacy. Unfortunately, ethical behavior can hurt profits for companies, so it is becoming increasing difficult to do it (SAGE, 2012).
I am not surprised that so much data is openly available. As long as this method of gathering and tracking data is available and making companies are money, they will continue to use it. The platforms we use everyday have no obligation to worry about our privacy (McNamee, 2019). I think that some level of change would be good to protect internet users. It could be through continuing to educated consumers about the dangers of putting so much personal data on the internet.
References
McNamee, R. (2019). A Brief History of How Your Privacy Was Stolen. Retrieved November 23, 2022, from https://www.proquest.com/docview/2233877088?accountid=14580&parentSessionId=7DlkxzxfbK1XzCV325YQda9mGAwGtJlvGz6SShUM2Ho%3D
SAGE Publications. (2012). SAGE Brief Guide to Marketing Ethics. SAGE Publications, Inc.
