CASE
STUDY CHAPTER 12 : ETHICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS
1) Why do cell phone manufacturers
(Apple, Google, and BlackBerry) want to track where their customers go?
They
collect this data for advertising and marketing purposes. Now the mobile Web
grid tracks you and your friends to sell you product and services. A new
technology based on smartphones can identify where you are located within a few
yards. And there’s a great deal of money to be made knowing where you are.
Mobile technologies based on the smartphone make it possible to located people
throughout the day, to report this information to corporate data bases, retain
and analyze the information, and then sell it to advertisers and other.
Location data gathered from cell phones has extraordinary commercial value
because advertising companies can send you advertisement, coupons and flash
bargain, based on where you are located.
2) Do you think cell phone customers should
be able to turn tracking off? Should customers be informed when they are being
tracked? Why or why not?
Yes
I think that there should be a feature to turn such features off. Customers
should be informed even though most apps do display that GPS and network access
is a requirement for the application.
3) Do you think cell phone tracking is
a violation of a person’s privacy?
Cell
phone tracking is indeed an invasion of privacy. A privacy group is EPIC. The
Electronic Privacy Information Center was founded in 1993 and focuses public
attention to emerging civil liberties and to protect privacy, the first
amendment, and constitutional values. I do support its calls for federal
regulation because it does need to be regulated as this type of tracking is a
breach of privacy.
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