Ethical Marketing on the Internet:
A Brief Analysis of How Common Culture May View Business Internet Activities
Ryan Wilson Neal
Business 105
Fall 2006
Ethical Marketing on the Internet
Since the beginning of the Internet, people have been trying to figure out ways of profiting from
the people who use it. It started with online sales, then online advertisements, and now has grown into
several different areas of marketing. The question is what kind of Marketing practices can be
considered ethical on the Internet. Many companies use standard bar advertisements, but what about
the pop-up ads that take over your screen, the cookies that register to websites to tell them what
advertisements you respond to most, or the endless spam e-mails you get in your mailbox each day?
Are those to be considered ethical? And if those are ethical, what about spyware? How far do ethics
go? There is a limit to how far you can take things on the Internet before it can be considered unethical
by the moral majority. There is, and I plan on proving this by using a case analysis and comparing the
ethical views of Kantian ethics.
Many companies have pushed the line on what is ethical to do on the Internet, and it has come
to the point that even though there are no laws governing these areas, there are lawsuits arising.
According to Alana Semuels, a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, on September 8th, 2006; two
Southern California companies, Conspy and Enternet, “settled in court to pay $2.05 million to the
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to settle charges that they created spyware programs that reached 18
million computers worldwide.” These companies used spyware to collect marketing research which
they would then use for profit. The companies would offer free products to the consumer on the basis
that the consumers would install their products at the same time. Often times they would be unaware
that the software was being installed as well, and they would never know that all their motions on the
Internet were being tracked. The company Enternet's software also “hijacked” home pages to reset
them to advertised sites instead of what the owner of the computer wanted as their home page.
According to Dan Caterinicchia of the Associated Press Financial Wire, this was the FTC's
“second-biggest settlement against two California companies accused of spreading malicious spyware
to more than 18 million computer users worldwide.” It was only recently that the FTC started to crack
down on spyware, which was previously not illegal. But was it ever a moral thing to do? The way
spyware works can be considered manipulation of the consumer. While the consumer thinks they are
just getting free music, they are actually downloading spyware that tracks their every movement. It is
understandable that companies would like to get market research on what people like to look at online,
but this is not an ethical way of receiving this information. Using Kantian ethics, we say that the only
ethically good things are done using good will. When you create companies to spy on people and steal
information without them knowingly participating, that is not using good will towards others. There are
better ways of getting market research without stealing the information from helpless individuals.
Companies know that computer users do not like spyware, they even have developed programs that
specifically find and remove spyware from people's computers as if they were viruses. Knowing that
people do not want spyware on their computers, these companies tricked people into installing it. That
is not good will at all. According to Kant, for something to be ethical, you must have the right reasons
for doing it.
Spyware is not only immoral, but it is illegal too. To truly test morals of a company, you must
watch what they do legally but immorally. Spam is a way of telling consumers about your products, it
is mass emailing to no specifically selected individuals, but to all. Many companies use Spam to
advertise. Most consumers, upon opening their email boxes, can see several spam emails each day,
cluttering their folders and taking up their time to delete them and read through to see which emails are
important and which are not. Several of these emails are also inappropriate, offering sexual products or
inappropriate services. When in the workplace you will try to delete these as quickly as possible before
co-workers or a boss might see you, then often times, computer users even accidentally delete
important emails because they confuse them with ones that are spam. According to Kant, “One ought
only to act such that the principle of one's act could become a universal law of human action in a world
in which one would hope to live.” When these companies send out mass emails to consumers trying to
sell their products, do they comprehend these ideals? What would an owner of one of these companies
say if while walking to work every day the same person approaches them and asks the same question
each day? What if these questions were inappropriate? If one is to listen to Kant and apply his
philosophies, then these companies would be asking for a world like this.
Kant also speaks of people having intrinsic value, and not just being a means to make one's
goals complete. If you are not respecting people by sending them email they do not want, are you
treating them as anything other than a way to achieve your goals? Truly if these companies want to
show they have morals than they should be respectful and only send emails to those whom would enjoy
it. If an individual signs up for a sports website and asks to be put on their mailing list, then it would be
considered morally justified for that website to send them emails until they ask to be removed. But if
someone signs up at a sports website and the website's affiliate companies start sending the individual
email's about clothing, mortgages, or food, then it would be easy to see that they did not treat that
person as if they had more value than their monetary value.
On the contrary opinion, a Utilitarian might say that these means are justified by the outcome.
People do not suffer from spyware and having their actions tracked, and they prosper from getting free
music or other software while the companies profit by getting useful marketing information so they
know which consumers use which websites the most so that they know where to advertise. If no one
suffers and some people prosper, then a Utilitarian would say this is a good policy. A Relativist might
say that due to the culture of the Internet, it is understandable for people to advertise and market in such
ways, and that it shouldn't be seen as an unethical practices for a business to use such methods when
trying to achieve their goals. Virtue Ethics on the other hand would help to support the Utilitarian
views discussed previously. Aristotle would say that you shouldn't do things for the wrong reasons, and
as you decide if something is ethical you should take into account the 6 dimensions of business ethics.
One should get away from “bottom line thinking” and trying to make money, and instead think that
“people come before profits.” Therefore, ignoring the fact that people do not want junk emails is
unethical because you are just wanting to make money from mass advertising that is cheap.
I have proved that there is a line to what is ethical using marketing on the Internet by taking into
account the views of Aristotle and Kant, we can now view that the marketing practices of such
companies as Conspy and Enternet are unethical, and should be considered so. There is a line on how
far you can take marketing practices when it comes to the Internet before you can be viewed as
unethical. While some may take Utilitarian and Relativist views and think that it is all ethical as long as
no one gets hurt or suffers some type of loss, in this case the majority of computer users would take the
Kantian approach. And truly, to see something as ethical in a society, you must go with the moral
majority, and not with the few who stand to make profit from taking certain views.
Bibliography
Caterinicchia, Dan. “FTC spyware settlement affects 18m”
Associated Press Financial Wire 7 September 2006. (http://web.lexisnexis.com/universe/document?_m=e4774e808e3bed5c0679e5dc3f53f6e5&_docnum=1&wchp=
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Cording, Margaret, Donaldson, Thomas, and Werhane, Patricia. Ethical Issues in Business; A
Philosophical Approach 7th Edition
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Semuels, Alana. “California and the West; Two Firms Settle Claims of Spyware; Enternet and Conspy,
whose programs may have infected 18 million computers, agree to pay $2.05 million.”
Los Angeles Times Friday Home Edition, 8 September 2006. (http://web.lexisnexis.com/universe/document?_m=f155c7b0af9cc42232cbde9d6025c583&_docnum=25&wchp
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