Collecting cookies

By Hunter Dorner
hunterdorner99@gmail.com /hd366416@ohio.edu

What are the ethics behind collecting data for advertisers?

Everyone has had an experience where they had googled something and then moments later they received an ad about the exact same thing. This is called behavioral advertising and it works by collecting your data and finding related products to it. Some may find it scary but it is an effective and efficient way to communicate for both the advertiser and the consumer.

But with this it can be abused, there has to be some line drawn where our most personal data cannot be used to advertise to us. In the Principals and Practices of Advertising Ethics, it states:

"Advertisers should never compromise consumers’ personal privacy in marketing communications, and their choices as to whether to participate in providing their information should be transparent and easily made."

In an ideal world, this principle would be true, but in many cases, there is not as much transparency as many desire. Most times we do not know where our data is going or what of our data is getting used. As well as the participation of this data is most times required in order to use the account or app and other times it is buried underneath pages of the user agreement.

Another question is what constitutes our personal data. Here is an article by wired to explain what constitutes our personal data. They go into the dangers of misusing this personal data as well where the consumer themselves can get affected negatively.

How can this be fixed?

I do not believe that there would be any law that can perfectly pinpoint the problem that is here, but I do believe that there will be a change. I think that the action will be driven by the consumer and in the advertiser's best interest. If behavioral advertising becomes too personal then it will start to affect consumer trust in advertising. In this way, I believe that it will be market-driven by the demand for a more transparent exchange. In this article by Tech Crunch, they go into detail how mass consumer data collection is declining consumer trust.

The deceptive tactics used by these companies to ensure the collection of our data can be debated whether or not they are ethical, but in the future, as our online presence becomes ever more expanding so will the presence and problems of data collection.