Case study: Big data gets personal - behavioral targeting

Question 1- Why is behavioral tracking such an important ethical dilemma today? Identify the stakeholders and interest groups in favor of and opposed to behavioral tracking.

This case study shows that technology can be a double-edged sword. It can be the source of many benefits. It can also create new opportunities for breaking the law or taking benefits away from others. The Web has created new opportunities and challenges regarding privacy issues. It has also created struggles between businesses and users regarding the vast amounts of data that are collected from Web surfing. The misuse and abuse of data also create moral and ethical dilemmas that students are likely to face in the workplace.

Stakeholders in favor of behavioral tracking include:

Individual Web sites and companies whose business is identifying and tracking Internet users (Google, Facebook, etc.)

Advertisers and marketers

Law enforcement agencies

Stakeholders opposed to behavioral tracking include:

Users who value privacy and don’t want to be inundated with advertisements

Privacy groups who try to enforce expectations of not having unwarranted intrusions into personal lives

 

Question 2-How do businesses benefit from behavioral tracking? Do people benefit? Explain your answer

Benefits for Online Publisher

If a user decides to click on an ad or link that they just “happen” to come upon, this means that their targeting strategy actually works.

This means increase in traffic and number of hits, which spells more profit

Benefits for Retailer

If a retailer is selling musical instruments, for example, wouldn’t it be best if he/she can target those who are really into music? Not everybody who goes online would be interested in playing the guitar or piano.

If an entrepreneur, through data tracking software, can find out the people who do, then this would be a great help to his business.

Well-matched and targeted ads can lead to a possible sale, and of course, increased sales means greater returns.

Benefit for Users

Users may find links and ads on his wall that are related to his preferred topics or interests. This can actually help save him the time of conducting an online search in the first place. For example you are searching for a car , suddenly you see a lot of advertisement about cars in the positive side that saves time you don’t have to spend the whole night searching for a car, in the negative light it may not be the kind of car you like probably the design are off or lacking in other department

 

Question 3-What would happen if there were no behavioral tracking on the Internet?

To be sure, online advertising would still occur but in a less efficient way—at least for advertisers. Online ads would operate much like ads in newspapers, magazines, and television. The ads would be more broad-based without the ability to directly target only those who may be interested in the ad.

By having data based on behavioral tracking, advertisers can zero in on those people most likely to be interested in the product. That makes the ads more effective and more valuable money-wise.

The absence of behavioral tracking would provide more privacy for users. It would also lessen the chances of the data and profiles built from them being used against individuals. The lack of behavioral targeting would also remove the possibility of people being unfairly denied a variety of services such as credit and insurance because of their associations with other people and their negative behaviour. The private information will be missing such as the contents of shopping carts, location information or login information. Also the websites you visit do not protect your information on internet as most don’t have cookies or “ Do not track” options as often as it should be which may increase the scammer and spammer because of lack of protection leading to number amounts of anonymous people making fake accounts for free.