Information is the power as it gives ways to make decisions and conclude our ideas. As per (Morris & Lavandera, 2012) , data is now $300 billion a year industry and employs 3 million people in the USA alone. Though still there is debate on the ethical use of the data and its privacy, I personally think it depends on how the data is being used and the purpose of doing so. If it is for the betterment of the civilization, for example, creation of new products, new medical findings through researches than data mining is worth it. But the process has to be transparent and customers should know what is being done with their data.
Companies are trying to know the market well so that they can recommend something better for us, that interest you. Indeed, data generates tremendous value to the business as well as for the people. Similarly, data sharing has a profound and positive impact also. Remember we are in the circular and sharing economy. For example, if you go to the Bank of America to apply for the loan, then they will go through series of our critical data, from social security number to credit score(FICO, Equifax) et cetera, this is to be done for pre-approval process. This sharing of information among the organization not only reduces the chances of fraud but also alleviates the happening of sub-prime housing recession that halted the global economy a decade ago. The sharing of the data helps to preserve the scares resource by using it in the most optimum way. As per (Lewis & Mckone, 2016) to get the more value from the data, sell it since these data could be helpful for the other companies to come up with new products, i.e. a profitable line of business is created.
Facebook, YouTube, and Amazon would not have recommended the goods and services as per our previous visit if they had not tracked us. For example, if you search the songs of Adele in YouTube, the next time you sign in YouTube, you will get the recommended lists of songs sung by Adele. Indeed, this ultimately benefits the user as it saves times of the customers.
But ironically the user gets frustrated and annoyed when the company does so by without informing the clients. The most recent issue could be the case of data mining and harvesting done by UK based “Cambridge Analytica” where it went through the data of around 50 million Facebook users. A thin silver lining is still to be drawn between data privacy and organization ethics. The things that the company often does in data cloud as micro-targeting or micro-management could often me devastating manipulation. Health Insurance company Blue Cross and Blue Shield bought data on the spending habits of more than 3 million members of its employer group health plan (Hanks, 2018) , rhetorically if the member purchases a plus size apparel the insurance company sends them a weight loss scheme.
The economy has changed into the surveillance economy and there is a rise of new trends of capitalism called “Data Capitalism”. Companies likes Google, Amazon, Uber are making billions of dollars from our activities. They have crystalized data as a capital and has commodify and monetized them. Facebook had most recently performed “mood tests” on its users, the data scientists were tracking their behavior. But capturing the data from the people without their consent and compensation is a crime.
A tradeoff may always remain across the continuum on the ethical use of the data. As mentioned above the general community(consumer) are not getting the fair share of compensation. On the one hand, the companies working on data mining and harvesting are making billions of dollars whereas peoples are compromising their privacy. But I think if the data are being shared for the positive work for humankind it has to be allowed but in contrast, if it is for bad, it has to be abrogated.
References
Hanks, G. (2018). E-Business Ethical Issues on Selling Personal Information. Retrieved from www.smallbusiness.chron.com: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/ebusiness-ethical-issues-selling-personal-information-65718.html
Lewis , A., & Mckone, D. (2016, October 21). To Get More Value from Your Data, Sell It. Retrieved from www.hbr.org: https://hbr.org/2016/10/to-get-more-value-from-your-data-sell-it
Morris , J., & Lavandera, E. (2012, August Thursday). Why big companies buy, sell your data. Retrieved from www.cnn.com: https://www.cnn.com/2012/08/23/tech/web/big-data-acxiom/index.html
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