Online advertising is considered the pillar of “free” compared to the traditional way of advertising such as in a magazine or in the newspaper. The current model of advertising is based on what the marketers want consumers to see. Advertisers have a way of presenting a topic such as smoking and making it sound as though it’s not bad for you. Consumers want to see what is new and will follow a trend. Marketers have to use their own morals whether they want to present information to consumers. Most marketers will do whatever will benefit their company even if it doesn’t necessarily benefit the customer. It has become increasingly easy for marketers to gain information from consumers due to social media on the internet.
Privacy is the main concern on someone’s mind when they post something on the internet. Data is being collected in a way that many consumers are not aware of. Websites use cookies that track data that consumers are searching. This is the reason you could search an item and then that item shows up in an advertisement on your social media the same day. These types of advertising is based on consumer behavior. Advertisers now have the ability to target certain target market groups to get the best results in their advertisement. Online advertising will never be less dangerous until consumers gain back their privacy. The article, “Online Behavior Advertisement” called online advertising an “unregulated stock market”. In order for consumers to gain back their privacy, there needs to be rules set in place to “regulate” online advertising.
I do believe that this current model of online advertising is dangerous to society. Not only do advertisers have the ability to convince consumers that they need a product, but marketers have the ability to target consumers based on past search history. It was stated in the article “The End of Privacy” that “Facebook is a data harvesting platform”. The goal of Facebook is to gain as much data as they can. Facebook was originally created in order for friends and family to connect and share information and pictures about their lives. Marketers have realized that figuring out what humans want is a difficult thing to do and in order to be as successful as they can, they need as much data as they can collect. Overall, I would give the online advertising a score of 4 as dangerous to society. Society is lacking privacy. It has gotten to the point of consumers having to put tape over their computer cameras to “not be watched”. Collecting data has gotten out of hand.
Creating a code of ethics for digital marketers would include
- Creating a relationship with consumers to gain the correct information in an ethical way
- Respect
- Honesty
- Fairness
- Integrity
- Maintain high standards
- Morals
- Citizenship
After reading the article, “What Have Ethics Got to Do With Digital Marketing”, it was apparent how easy it is for marketers to find information about consumers. Social media has been a big impact on data collection. Social media is a big part of daily lives and consumers are constantly posting about what they like and what they don’t like. Marketers have to use their ethics and decide if collecting certain data is unethical. Not only is collecting unethical data using bad morals, it also damages brands. Yet, who defines if it is good morals or not. It was said in the “Small Business” article, that if a consumer is going to post about something, it is “free” to the web. Marketers have called this a “free exchange”. Marketers need to create an ethical handbook to discuss what is morally right and wrong. On the other hand, another article, “Talking the Internet”, starting that the internet can be fake and fixed. People can now buy followers for their social media accounts including Twitter and Instagram. This is making it harder for marketers to find truthful data.
Overall, it has become increasingly hard for consumers to have privacy on the internet. It has become dangerous for society with this current model of online advertising. The internet is “free” and marketers do not have a set of exact morals that tell them what is good and bad. It is the marketers job to respect the privacy of consumers. Laws have been set in place to ensure fairness and make sure that other companies do not steal other marketing ideas. Expanding these laws to ensure privacy to not use cookies and take data from consumers without their permission will only ensure that consumers are safe and respected on the internet.
Citations:
“The End of Privacy.” Philosophy Talk, www.philosophytalk.org/blog/end-privacy.
Boote, Tim. “What Have Ethics Got to Do with Digital Marketing?” Digital Marketing Magazine, 17 Jan. 2017, digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk/digital-marketing-features/what-have-ethics-got-to-do-with-digital-marketing/4031.
Spizziri, Martha. “Ethical Issues in Online Advertising.” The Balance Small Business, The Balance Small Business, 12 Nov. 2018, www.thebalancesmb.com/ethical-issues-in-online-advertising-39115.
Boerman, Sophie C. “Online Behavioral Advertising: A Literature Review and Research Agenda.” Taylor & Francis, 9 June 2018, www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00913367.2017.1339368.
