Learning Outcomes:
Understand why e-commerce raises ethical, social, and political issues.
Understand basic concepts related to privacy and information rights, the practices of e-commerce companies that threaten privacy, and the different methods that can be used to protect online privacy.
Understand the various forms of intellectual property and the challenges involved in protecting it.
Understand how the Internet is governed and why taxation of e-commerce raises governance and jurisdiction issues.
Identify major public safety and welfare issues raised by e-commerce.
Readings
Chapter 8: Ethical, Social, and Political Issues in E-commerce
Recommended
ETHICAL, SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL ISSUES IN ECOMMERCE in E-Commerce Concepts Tutorial 27 July 2022 – Learn ETHICAL, SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL ISSUES IN ECOMMERCE in E-Commerce Concepts Tutorial (11871) | Wisdom Jobs India (2022).
Video Case Study
The Right to Be Forgotten
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD37vwUD8Us
Think & Discuss
In this video, Mike Rugnetta, the host of the PBS web series Idea Channel, undertakes an entertaining, yet also insightful examination of the Right to Be Forgotten. Rugnetta reviews the current state of affairs with respect to the still evolving Right to Be Forgotten as of the date of publication of the video (February 2015), He reviews the case filed by Mario Costeja Gonzalez, which led to establishment of the Right to Be Forgotten by the European Court of Justice.
He places the Right in the context of previous European law and history. He also discusses the current limitation of the Right to Be Forgotten to just Europe and the implications of adopting such a Right on a global basis.
Rugnetta proposes that the Right to Be Forgotten can be re-conceptualized as the “right to be different from oneself” as suggested by Norberto Nuno Gomes de Andrade.
He finishes with some speculation about why some people habitually post and then quickly delete those posts on social media, and notes the way developers have responded to this behaviour.
Video Case Questions:
What is the Right of Oblivion and how does it differ from the Right to Be Forgotten?
According to Dr. Victor Mayer-Schoenberger, how has past history in Europe impacted current European attitudes toward personal privacy?
What are the concerns about the potential adoption of the Right to Be Forgotten on a worldwide basis?
What are some of the apps that the video notes are premised on the notion of impermanence and anonymity?
Test your knowledge
Q1: In terms of key issues in marketing and online privacy for consumers, creation of data images that characterize online individual and group behaviour is considered as:
Profiling and advertising networks
Social networking
Mobile phone privacy
Digital assistant privacy
Q2: In terms of Intellectual Property, what is considered as “Protects original forms of expression (not ideas) from being copied by others for a period of time”?
Patent
Trademark Law
Trade Secrets Law
Copyright
Q3: What is considered as “all tangible and intangible products of human mind”?
Privacy
Intellectual Property
Net Neutrality
Ethics
References
Laudon, K., & Traver, C. (2018). E-commerce: Business, technology, society. 2018. (14th). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. ISBN: 978-1-292-25170-7