The corporate use of customer databases has become so significant that “database marketing” has become an important sub-discipline in its own right (e.g. Wang et al, 1993, 1995; Jenkinson, 1995) and extensive and advanced information systems have become central to the marketing function. The use of customer data allows organizations to not only “know” their customers, but to tailor their marketing efforts to individual customers. Privacy is a personal thing: it’s the ability to personally control information about oneself, which is fast becoming one of the most important ethical issues of the information age. Some information we choose to keep private and others we desire to release to third parties with confidence that it won’t exchange further hands. That control of ones information once it leaves the individual's hands is what this issue is all about. If corporations can control the use of content legally, why shouldn't individuals be able to control the use of data legally or even sell for that matter?

It’s inevitable that marketing databases could become widespread as the capacity of new technology breaches expectations of anonymity and confidentiality. As a result, any defense of personal privacy faces an active challenge to it. For instance, “geolocation and data-mining company Digital Envoy of Norcross, GA, tracks two billion Internet addresses a day, culling demographic data that advertisers and retailers love.” Working like a search engine that studies the Webs infrastructure rather than its content, the firms system can track an Internet transaction backward from a website to the network node at which it originated in order to answer two questions: what city is the user in, and how fast is her Internet connection? From that information, the system can make a good guess about what business the user is in. “Digital Envoy can also identify a person’s local area code, time zone, and zip code and determine what language she speaks.”

However, for a consensual database to work, there must be a clearly defined boundary between what is legitimately accepted and one that is illegitimate. Thus individuals should be aware that personal information is being collected, and by whom and for what purpose and if so, whether they agree to the collection and subsequent uses of the data. And to what extent that data is going to be used, for what duration, and who owns the rights to that information gathered if it was sold for that matter. An important issue is specification of when awareness and consent or neither ought to apply. To consent implies being aware but the reverse is not necessarily true because the range of choices and their relative costs and benefits can condition consent.

More importantly the consensual database can also help to bring accountability to the data collectors; since it comes with an address, responsible behavior on their part may be more likely as a result. In that regard it is similar to a supervisor walking behind and monitoring workers, as against having this done secretly via remote computer. The knowledge of who is doing the monitoring can be a constraint on how it is done.


References:

Wang, P., & Petrison, L. A. (1993). Direct marketing activities and personal privacy: A consumer survey. Journal of Direct Marketing, 7(1), 7–19.

Jenkinson, A. (1995). Valuing your customers: From quality information to quality relationships through database marketing. London: McGraw-Hill.

http://www.digitalenvoy.net/company/about_us.html