Internet offers unique two-way interaction, this interactivity makes possible for the marketers to capture enormous amount of information about the customer, which can be used to customize marketing offers using appropriate data mining and CRM tools. Interactivity has also made it possible for the Internet to be used as a medium for establishing greater brand identity. In nutshell, Internet has reduced the barriers of time and distance for consumers to obtain information and for the marketer to build database. Because, very time someone gets information, he/she also leaves behind enormous data about their lifestyle, demographic details, e-mail id etc
This universal access to information has come with its own set of demerits as well. Issues of pornography, privacy, unsolicited e-mails, hacking, fraud, plagiarism, and transaction security continue to bother this emerging medium. On part of the marketers, problem started when they started looking at the information in general and customer information in particular as a marketable commodity. The very nature of the Internet increases the complexity of tackling the above problems. Internet involves diverse tools like telephone, television, print etc., and cuts across national boundaries. Hence, Internet complicates the legal, ethical, business and regulatory issues when compared to other media. Given these complexities and infancy of Internet, Bush et al. in their study, traverse through these complex legal, ethical, business and regulatory issues for Internet at three levels viz., societal, industry and company.There are not many studies that have attempted to address the issue of marketers’ perception of regulation at societal level. The present study addresses the issue by invoking the following questions.
• Has the lack of regulation on the Internet resulted in frequent ethical abuses by organizations?
• Should the Internet be regulated to insure ethical marketing?
As underlined earlier, Internet has emerged as a great source for database building. It has also emerged as a great medium for providing detailed product information, which in turn has propelled Internet as a great medium for advertising. With these backdrop, Bush et al. have raised the question, What are the ethical issues facing the use of the Internet for marketing purposes? Considerable amount of research
has been done on how to create a more ethical climate within a marketing organization. However how does it apply to Internet is something very few studies have probed. Bush et al. under Internet ethics and the organization, have addressed the following issues;
• Are ethical issues related to marketing on the Internet basically the same as ethical issues raised with other forms of marketing in organizations?
• Do companies consider ethics when planning their Internet strategy?
• Should companies have or develop a code of ethics for Internet marketing?
• Are there differences in the way the advertising agencies and advertisers perceive ethical issues surrounding marketing on the Internet?
The above questions were asked to a sample of 1250 persons drawn from commercial mailing list of advertising agency and client organizations, representing marketing community in the US. The results of the investigation are quite interesting.
Majority of the marketing professionals who participated in the study are of the opinion that absence of Internet regulations has influenced ethical abuses. However, there was lack of consensus about regulation of Internet. At this point, the authors hint at the self-regulation, akin to American Advertising Association or Direct Marketing Associations.Large portion of the respondents have said that the ethics were rarely considered while making any Internet strategy. This is something disturbing. But the fact that majority of the respondents strongly feel that companies should have or develop a code of ethics for Internet marketing
to acquire some comfort. At a macro level, the paper questions the necessity for a separate code for Internet. Since, most of the organizations as part of corporate values already have some kind of standards that guide external and internal functions. The paper also raises the question of compliance to the
code of ethics as formulation of code of ethics is easier, but how does an organization ensure compliance is a difficult question to answer.
Conclusion
Though business is unsure of whether to regulate this new medium and if so how, the fact that a great need is felt to guarantee the present and potential customers for the security of the data provided would eventually push marketers towards better business practices. Researchers are of the view that individual organizations would take lead in addressing many of these societal and industrial issues surrounding Internet. Hopefully all these would make Internet a better medium to do business.
This paper is a research summary of the study conducted by Victoria D Bush, Beverly T Venable and Alan J Bush titled “Ethics and Marketing on the Internet: Practitioners’ Perception of Societal, Industry and Company concerns.” Compiled by Jayasimha and Braj Mohan Chaturvedi in 2003.
