> From: [email protected] [mailto:discuss- > [email protected]] On Behalf Of Benjamin Krueger > > So here's the question: What ethical > responsibilities, if any, do we carry in enabling this kind of data mining?
Everybody already knows, what's public information is public information. When customers use their credit card, which has their personal name on it, and a number connected to their bank account, they are voluntarily giving that information to the store for their own personal convenience, of not using cash. Naturally if the store can customize their marketing toward you and make more money, they will. I don't feel there's any ethical boundary there. I would venture to say, most people would probably like it. I would rather get coupons for stuff I actually buy, rather than random junk I'm not interested in. Do I care about some store official knowing which brand of diapers I buy for my baby? Or which personal items we buy? Not really. If I was worried about that sort of thing, I would buy it anonymously - use cash. Customers who want to do anonymous things use cash. Everyone knows this. Let's attempt the flipside argument: Suppose communicating your credit card number and name to the merchant constitutes a "conversation," then at least in the state of Mass, they're not permitted to record that conversation... Er... More correctly, they're not allowed to share that recording with any other person. That would be a violation of the two party consent to wire tap. But if you didn't have a conversation with a human being... You entered you card into a machine... To me, that's really not a conversation, but even if it were, I guess the machine is obligated not to share that information with any human. But the machine could be responsible for distributing marketing materials tailored to you personally without any humans in the know. _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
