Consumer profiling may be ethical if it results in beneficence for the group being studied (i.e., prior studies that concentrated on a source of infection in a designated area), or it can be unethical if it results in nothing but big profits for the big data broker, using somebody else’ personal data. Consumer profiling at the grocery store, at least results in a quid pro quo, but consumer profiling in general, results in nothing valuable gained, at the loss of your personal data – for which you get nothing in exchange. Consumer profiling data that is scoffed up by the government is a reminder of Big Brother!
The third participation assignment concerns consumer profiling! The attached article “What do firms know about you? FTC would pull back the curtain,” by Craig Timberg from the Washington Post of 5-28-14 has some details. There are three questions of ethical interest:
Please feel free to provide additional comments as you see fit!
In order to receive full participation credit (i.e., one point) for this Discussion Topic, students must provide an initial response to the week’s discussion topic by midnight, Eastern time, on Thursday (9-28-17) of the coming week, AND respond to at least two postings from other students to the current week’s discussion topic by the end of the class week (midnight, Eastern time, Sunday (10-1-17)). The initial response is worth 1.00 points and the two replies to the other students’ posting are worth .50 points each. Please see the Grading Rubric for Class Participation in the Syllabus.
Responses to Discussion Topic 3 will not be accepted after Midnight of 10-1-17
Participation is open-ended and has no holds barred (mechanics are not evaluated and objectivity is not required, although this is a perfect opportunity to practice). When preparing a response to a discussion topic in a Conference Session, the following suggestions apply: