When considering if data mining is
a cause for concern, I believe it depends more upon which data mining it is. I
believe that it is definitely not appropriate to be able to use three data
points in order to identify a specific person. I think that is a big invasion
of privacy and definitely unethical. On the other hand, I am not convinced that
the data mining done by Target is unethical. Although Target did, in a sense,
snoop on its customers to see a need and jump on the opportunity, Target is
still helping customers prepare for a big chapter in their lives and let the
customer know that they have the products that they are looking for.
Although this type of targeted
marketing may appear on the surface to be ethically wrong, it does not make
sense that a retail store should be penalized for learning what it is that a
shopper is looking for and provide such products to that customer. Yes, Target
did use statistics about customers to learn shopping patterns yet Target was
also able to learn of women who were expecting, and provide necessities that
they will need in order to help them while simultaneously increasing sales.
In my opinion, Target manager’s
ethical obligation to the angry customer was to basically do what he had done.
He needed to apologize if there was a misunderstanding and make the customer
feel secure. The manager called again a few days later with another apology, which
was appropriate in order to avoid the customer’s feelings being mislead by Target’s
coupons and advertising.
I do believe that it can be
considered unethical for Target to mix ads in a coupon book in order to prevent
customers from feeling uncomfortable or “creeped out.” By Target choosing to do
that, it insinuates that they do have something to hide. It also suggests that
Target, too, would understand why such intense target marking would be frowned
upon. Thus, if Target did not see anything wrong with targeting certain
customers so specifically, they would have no reason to hide what they were
doing by ad mixing in coupon books.
These practices fit within the
code of ethics for advertisers and PR practitioners in that the public should be
told only factual statements about products. However, this is not to say that
in marketing a product, consumers are not to expect advertising to be exaggerated
and be able to make up their minds on products for themselves. In the same
case, Target customers may be presented with target marketing that pertains to
certain life situations, but it is their choice whether they choose to shop for
these products at Target or elsewhere. Consumers should be able to realize the
message that is being sent to them by retailers and choose what to do with that
information on their own. Several ethical perspectives apply in this case, according to the textbook. Ethicist
Sissela Bok believed that it is unreasonable for people to expect the entire truth,
but that it is ethical to be truthful, as she stated in her novel Lying. Bok states that lying is
intentional deception. In this case, Target was not being intentionally
deceptive until they started ad mixing in coupon books in order to throw
pregnant customers off from being “creeped out.” David Gordon believes that advertising
does not always need to include the full, absolute truth due to the fact that
sales need to be made and people are aware of that, thus the entire truth can
be excused. Michael Schudson states that advertisers attempt to persuade the
consumer based off what they have to sell. The general consensus remains that
persuasive communicators are often trying to exploit the consumer and thus, it
is in the consumers’ hands to be aware of this and act accordingly.
Work Cited
Textbook Controversies
in Media Ethics 3rd Edition by A. David Gordon, John Michael
Kittross, John C. Merrill, William A. Babcock, Michael Dorsher
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