Socially Responsible Target Marketing and Marketing Communications – Concerns and Initiatives

Companies are in business to generate revenues and profits and achieve business excellence. Now-a-days, companies are becoming sensitive towards their social responsibilities of ensuring not only consumer welfare but also the welfare of all stakeholders including the society at large. Companies do target marketing and marketing communications to communicate about their offerings to target markets. They adopt socially responsible target marketing, marketing communications, and advertising campaigns. Various issues in advertising campaigns include deceptive advertising, and unethical practices in fashion advertising and in cosmetics industry. Companies adopt advertising campaigns for social causes, socially responsible sales promotion, and personal selling. Companies should ensure consumer privacy, safety, and security. Various stakeholders want to be assured that businesses care about their welfare. Businesses should ensure consumer welfare and welfare of the society at large. This will allow them to achieve business excellence and stay ahead in the competition.

The Urgency of the Personal Data Protection Law as an Instrument to Prevent Misuse of Personal Data in StartUp Companies

The E-Commerce progress during the Covid-19 pandemic, has had an impact on the emergence of many startup companies such as Tokopedia, Gojek, Traveloka, and Bukalapak. There are legal problems caused by the emergence of these start-ups. One of the serious problems it causes is maintaining consumer privacy from start-up companies. A large number of applications are used, making it easier for companies to obtain their consumers' data. This raises the possibility of leakage of consumer personal data, the possibility that will arise needs to be considered regarding the guarantee of transaction security and privacy, namely the protection of consumer personal data which can cause problems in the future if data leaks occur. The discussion in this article is how the problems with consumer personal data in start-up companies are and how important the Law on personal data protection is as an effort to protect consumer personal data for start-up companies. However, Indonesia still does not have a law that specifically regulates the protection of personal data, where this law is urgently needed at this time as a legal umbrella for the people of Indonesia.

Financial Modernization Act - Enterprise value and Reputation

The Financial Service Modernization Act of 1999 has been crucial to the financial service industry ever since its creation. There are two primary reasons this Act was mandated to aid the financial service industry- the merger/barrier reason and consumer privacy reason. This paper evaluates whether this policy has achieved this object and how the effect the policy has had on the financial service industry compares to the non-policy effect on wholesale trade industry, retail trade industry and service industry. This paper finds that this policy is one of the significant reasons, If not the primary reason, for the increase in the Enterprise Value (EV) of firms within the financial service industries over the industries. Furthermore, the findings suggest that customer complaints may have lessened within the financial service industries more than Wholesale and Retail trade industries but not the service industries.

Setting the Bar Low: Are Websites Complying With the Minimum Requirements of the CCPA?

On June 28, 2018, the California State Legislature passed the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), arguably the most comprehensive piece of online privacy legislation in the United States. Online services covered by the CCPA are required to provide a hyperlink on their homepage with the text “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” (DNSMPI). The CCPA went into effect on January 1, 2020, a date that was chosen to give data collectors time to study the new law and bring themselves into compliance. In this study, we begin the process of investigating whether websites are complying with the CCPA by focusing on DNSMPI links. Using longitudinal data crawled from the top 1M websites in the Tranco ranking, we examine which websites are including DNSMPI links, whether the websites without DNSMPI links are out of compliance with the law, whether websites are using geofences to dynamically hide DNSMPI links from non-Californians, how DNSMPI adoption has changed over time, and how websites are choosing to present DNSMPI links (e.g., in terms of font size, color, and placement). We argue that the answers to these questions are critical for spurring enforcement actions under the law, and helping to shape future privacy laws and regulations, e.g., rule making that will soon commence around the successor to the CCPA, known as the CPRA.

The internet and consumer privacy - shopping basket or too hard basket

<p>The Internet has rapidly become the world’s most prevalent form of communication. It can be accessed twenty-four hours a day from virtually any location in the world from a myriad of technologically savvy devices. Internet users can keep up to date with world events, watch movies, listen to music, interact with government agencies, analyse business trends, undertake research and maintain contact with people anywhere. The Internet also provides the ability for users to shop ‘online’ with virtually any product or service supplier anywhere in the world. This has created concerns regarding the use of personal information obtained through the medium of the Internet. An individual’s right to privacy is a right enshrined in legislation and through tort law. With the uptake of technology and the burgeoning use of the Internet the subject of online privacy has become a complex issue for law and policy makers both in New Zealand and internationally. The aim of this paper is to look at the online shopper or consumer and how their information could be protected. This paper looks at the key areas of privacy legislation, the storage of data and the rise of new technologies including ‘cloud’ computing and suggests that the complexity of online privacy is such that a different approach to access and use of personal information of online shoppers may be required. The rate of technology change, the enormity of the data capture situation and the international accessibility of the Internet are all factors that create an almost impossible situation for ensuring consumer privacy so this paper proposes that the onus moves away from the law and policy makers and put into the hands of the users of the Internet.</p>

Usage of smartphone for financial transactions: from the consumer privacy perspective

Purpose This study aims to empirically examine how consumer privacy concerns (CPC) impact smartphone usage for financial transactions. The study also investigates the moderating impact of regulations on this action. Design/methodology/approach With the inputs from literature and related privacy theories, a theoretical model was developed. The model was later empirically validated using the partial least squares structural equation modeling technique with 367 respondents from India. Findings The study finds that CPC significantly impacts on consumer behavior in using smartphones for financial transactions. The study also highlights that regulation has a moderating impact on consumer usage of smartphones for financial transactions. Research limitations/implications This study provides valuable inputs to smartphone service providers, practitioners, regulatory authorities and policymakers on appropriate and secure usage of smartphones by consumers, ensuring privacy protection while making financial transactions. Originality/value This study provides a unique model showing the antecedents of CPC to impact the behavioral reaction of smartphone users mediated through the ingredients of privacy calculus theory. Besides, this study analyzes the moderating effects of regulation on the use of smartphones for financial transactions. This is also a novel approach of this study.

Consumer Consent and Firm Targeting After GDPR: The Case of a Large Telecom Provider

The general data protection regulation (GDPR) represents a dramatic shift in global privacy regulation. We focus on GDPR’s enhanced consumer consent requirements that aim to provide transparent and active elicitation of data allowances. We evaluate the effect of enhanced consent on consumer opt-in behavior and on firm behavior and outcomes after consent is solicited. Utilizing an experiment at a large telecommunications provider with operations in Europe, we find that opt-in for different data types and uses increased once GDPR-compliant consent was elicited. However, consumers did not uniformly increase data allowances and continued to generally restrict permissions for more sensitive or tangential uses of their personal information. We also find that sales, the efficacy of marketing communications, and contractual lock-in increased after consumers provided new data allowances. Additional analysis suggests that these gains to the firm emerged because new data allowances enabled them to increase their use of targeted marketing for households that were amenable to these marketing efforts. These results have significant implications for firms and policymakers and suggest that enhanced consent provided via GDPR may be effective for increasing consumer privacy protection while also allowing firms reliant on consumers’ personal information to improve outcomes. This paper was accepted by Chris Forman, information systems.

Individual costs and societal benefits: the privacy calculus of contact-tracing apps

Purpose During 2020, governments around the world introduced contact-tracing apps to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. In order for contact-tracing apps to be efficient tools in combatting pandemics, a significant proportion of the population has to install it. However, in many countries, the success of apps introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic has been limited due to lack of public support. This paper aims to better understand why consumers seem unwilling to install and use a contact-tracing app. Design/methodology/approach In this study, the authors test a number of determinants hypothesized to influence acceptance of contact-tracing apps based on the theory of privacy calculus (Dinev and Hart, 2006). Both perceived privacy concerns, as well as perceived hedonic, utilitarian and pro-social benefits are included. The hypotheses are tested through SEM analysis on a representative sample of 1,007 Swedish citizens. Findings The results indicate significant privacy concerns with using contact-tracing apps. However, this is to some extent offset by perceived hedonic and pro-social positive consequences of using the app. This study further shows that a general positive attitude towards innovation increases acceptance of the app. Originality/value The study contributes to research on consumer privacy, both in general in its application of the calculus model but also specifically in the context of contact-tracing apps. Moreover, as the results highlight which aspects that are important for consumers to accept and install an app of this kind, they also represent an important contribution to policymakers in countries around the world.