As all of the ad readings went over, the biggest ethical issue with advertising in today’s information age is the highly targeted advertising companies are able to do, and how they are able to do it. Since nearly everything is connected to the internet nowadays, you are unable to do anything without that action being a data point in the hidden profile kept on you by Google, FaceBook, and all other companies that buy and sell such data. Even companies that you may consider “good guys,” like your bank or employer are likely selling data that you are lumped into, and often without your knowledge. But, they usually can claim they have your consent, because after all, you agreed to the terms of service.
I think that the problem with this is twofold. First, that the collection seems surreptitious, and second, that people are not made aware when their data is being bought and sold. One of the articles mentioned the story that came up about a year ago that Google was tracking users’ locations, even when location services were explicitly set to off. This is a huge violation of trust. I do not know what Google’s response to this exposure was, whether they owned up to it, or tried to claim that it was for some ultimately benevolent purpose. There are other, less blatant collections that go on as well though such as, as I mentioned earlier, companies like banks collecting and selling information about their customers. Just because someone blindly agreed to such data usage by clicking the little checkbox leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
There are more ethical factors at play here than any one person could count, and frankly, its so overwhelming that it’s hard for me to give a decisive opinion on any of them. On one hand, users did click the “I agree” box when they made their account on “insert service name here.” So, they agreed to have their data collected and then bought or sold regardless of whether they actually read the agreement or not. Since every platform and every company is able to collect data on you, even parts of your life that you think are well separated are easy to piece back together. I would like to see data mining and targeted advertising cease, but that would require a huge paradigm shift in technology users around the globe, and short of something terrible, I don’t see anything in the future jolting people out of their ways. It’s too easy to just accept it and let companies have their way with our data.
I really like this quote from one of the articles: “So, the companies making the data-tracking tools have serious incentive to erode the idea of privacy not just because they can make (more) money, but because privacy erosion leads to more privacy erosion. The system is self-reinforcing. This is a problem.” It seems that people now expect their data to be used without their knowledge, and no one has any real reason to believe otherwise. Its not in any company’s best interest to behave differently. Honestly, I think that if you, even irregularly, use an internet connected device, you have lost a lot of your privacy, at least to tech and advertising companies. Chances are though, you still have a lot of privacy with regards to friends, family, and strangers you see walking down the street, so does it really matter? I don’t like this thought. It seems wrong to say that if there isn’t a significant impact to your personal life just live with it. I can’t really come up with good counter arguments and examples, however, so maybe there is some seed of truth to it not mattering in the grand scheme of things.
With regards to online ads and ad-blockers, simply put, I hate online advertising and use an ad-blocker with hardly any pangs of remorse. At times I do feel bad for preventing some website that I actually like and support from making its ad revenue, but for the most part, I think that ad-blocking is a safety precaution and necessary for any type of positive user experience on the Web. I think that the article that claimed that ad-blockers are a form of theft has some merit, because as the Kant article mentioned, if everyone on the internet blocked ads, most sites would die off, but there is too much fault with the ad sellers to accept such a position. If they had been stricter with what types of ads they published on websites and put less intrusive and distracting content in ad-space, the problem would never have arisen. However, since it is a problem today, I don’t think any change to ads in the future could change people who use ad-blockers; I certainly won’t stop using one.
Ethics Blog 