Abstract
Technology used in online marketing has advanced to a state where collection, enhancement and aggregation of information are instantaneous. This proliferation of customer information focused technology brings with it a host of issues surrounding customer privacy. This article makes two key contributions to the debate concerning digital privacy. First, we use theories of justice to help understand the way consumers conceive of, and react to, privacy concerns. Specifically, it is argued that an important component of consumers’ privacy concerns relates to fairness judgments, which in turn comprise of the two primary components of distributive and procedural justice. Second, we make a number of prescriptions, aimed at both firms and regulators, based on the notion that consumers respond to perceived privacy violations in much the same way they would respond to an unfair exchange.
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Laurence Ashworth is an Assistant Professor at the Queen’s School of Business, Queen’s University, Canada and received his PhD from the University of British Columbia. Dr Ashworth is interested in social and affective influences on consumer judgment and decision making.
Clinton Free is an Assistant Professor at the Queen’s School of Business, Queen’s University, Canada and received his D␣Phil from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar. His research is primarily in the areas of management control, supply chain accounting, customer accounting and the legal environment of accounting and management. Prior to obtaining his PhD, Dr Free worked for a major accounting and law firm in Sydney, Australia.
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Ashworth, L., Free, C. Marketing Dataveillance and Digital Privacy: Using Theories of Justice to Understand Consumers’ Online Privacy Concerns. J Bus Ethics 67, 107–123 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-006-9007-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-006-9007-7