Digital personalisation and trading data, it can be fun. We, as consumers, can feel more related to a brand. If we look at the Share a Coke campaign by Coca Cola, a lot of people seemed to enjoy having their names on the Coca Cola bottles and sharing them with people they care about. But some companies may cross the line by how they use this data.
Facebook recently forced their users to download Facebook Messenger in order to be able to keep sending private messages. The main reason a lot of Facebook users were not amused about it was because of privacy concerns. The app requires you to allow access to a big amount of personal data. This resulted into figures showing nearly 94% rated the app with just one star.
Another example is where dating website OKCupid set up bad matches to see if these people would connect. However, they told the mismatching pairs they were a 90% match instead of the 30% match they actually were. I think companies have to be aware that there is a gap between what consumers and marketers think is acceptable and they should not be giving false information to their consumers. If it’s not beneficial to the consumers they will probably feel used. Many users felt like the experiment by OKCupid was also unethical. Some of them expressed their feelings on Twitter.
Here are a few examples:
In defense, OKCupid president Christian Rudder said, “If you use the internet, you’re the subject of hundreds of experiments at any time, on every site. That’s how websites work.”
With whom do you agree? Do you think it is unacceptable that companies experiment without your notion? Or do you think the responsibility simply lies with the consumer, knowing a lot of companies can and probably will use personal data nowadays?
Sources:
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28542642
http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-messenger-app-store-reviews-are-humiliating-2014-8
This is a tough question. I think that both, companies and consumers are responsible for their actions. Nevertheless, a company´s success depends on consumers satisfaction. As in the case of OKCupid, when people do not like their actions and may feel used, they just stop using their service/product. This in return demonstrates that their actions are (ethical) not correct and maybe similar companies avoid such operations in the future.
This reminds me of the scandal by Abercrombie & Fitch, wherein Michael Jeffries states in an interview that the brand is made for good-looking, cool people. Afterwards a huge shitstorm arouse because people felt excluded.
However, coming back to the question whether it is acceptable that companies experiment without our notion, I think that every unacceptable practice will backfire at some point in time. But in addition, I also believe that companies like Facebook preserve a monopoly and therefore a higher pain threshold exists.
I agree with the above comment, that it is a tough question. Well, I think that consumers or internet users should be aware of those experiments anyway, because lately the privacy concerns in social media is a major point of discussion. Everyone is pretty informed of the fact that their personal data can be used by companies and that they have to look out for the risk of their privacy in social media. But, on the other side, I also think that it is wrong to say that if you’re an internet user that you are always used in experiments, because that means that you can’t have an account without risk or that your personal data won’t be safe at all.
I think there has to be something in between the safety of privacy of internet users and the experiments of those companies. I think that companies should clarify the conditions of a certain website, like that your data can be used in their experiments. However, when companies ask internet users for their permission for the use of their data in experiments, the internet users are aware of it so that can maybe influence the experiment. But I can imagine that people on the dating website OKCupid, didn’t saw it coming because you don’t expect such a thing on dating sites I think.