FGD Case Question_techcrunch
1. What do you think of the Techcrunch article’s statement on the first page of the case?
o Techcrunch statements show the contra toward Amazon’s shopper panel program
due to the possibility of anti-competitive business practices and antitrust charges.
However, I disagree with the statement because the possibility can be tackled with
amazon’s company policy which was mentioned by CEO Jeff Bezos. The concerns of
whether it has been violated or not, I believe are manageable and can be proven
through monitoring action from Amazon to confirm rules, principles, guidelines, or
frameworks are followed within a set of established boundaries.
2. What is the definition of Amazon Shopper Panel?
o Amazon shopper panel is a phone app program launched by Amazon where it can
collect shopping data from the invited customer to share their purchase receipts from
non-Amazon suppliers, and in return, the customer gets rewards such as Amazon
credit, and another additional reward if they participating to answer a survey of their
purchases.
3. What is the main information of exhibit 3 and why is it important?
o Exhibits 3 presents the background and purpose of Amazon to create the shopper
panel creation. There is a gap that Amazon tries to cover by providing the brand needs
of information of consumer insight and behavior beyond Amazon due to its minimum
US retail coverage. Beyond that, it shows that both consumer and brand will get an
advantage. It helps the brand improve their advertising strategy and better shopping
experience for consumer which make it more necessary to have the Amazon Shopper
Panel.
4. Based on the first two pages, how do the stakeholders respond to the program?
o The response shows concerns and positive perceptions as well. some worried consent
toward their devices tracking and targeting ads when they share their receipt’s image
to Amazon. However, some are also more welcome toward this program especially
for the reward they can earn. It was also interesting for those who does not receive
the invitation, where they would join the waitlist first before officially get the
invitation.
5. What are the issues that the company will potentially face?
o The main issue would be data privacy issues, how to ensure the transparency of the
data usage and tracking to the consumer. The second potential issue is collecting and
utilizing cookies which must be under consumer consent and the third is to avoid
consumer data trading practices with other companies.
6. Based on the stated issues, what complications they might bring to the business?
o Based on the issues, if a company fails to overcome it, there would be several impacts
for the business such as there will be a huge barrier for a business to earn insight and
behavior due to the limitation of their platform or website to track consumer data,
which later can make the business less relevant with the target consumer. The
violation of consumer data privacy will quickly be ruining a company's reputation,
obtain penalties from the regulatory, impacting business operations and bring
monetary losses.
7. Please check the first sentence on page 4. What is the implication of this statement?
o The first sentence on page 4 said “as with many technological advancements, current
laws and regulations lagged behind on data privacy issues”. It implies that the current
laws and regulation is not yet able to cover and protect the consumers who get
impacted from the data privacy problem. There is an urgent need to create strong
laws and regulations from the government side to protect the society as part of the
response toward the rapid’s technology growth.
8. What are your purposed solutions regarding this case study? Prepare at least 3 proposed
solutions with supporting arguments.
o First, The Proper data management to ensure high-quality compliance toward the
user policy in the process and result. This action can be taken by a company such as
an amazon to put the user data policy in priority. It can be done by creating a company
structure that focuses managed the consumer data, including transparency reports to
the consumer and government or another related party. Regular assessment can be
done to support compliance.
o Second, the government laws and regulations to manage potential violations of the
practice. This is the strongest solution since the government has a high position in
terms of managing the laws that can both cover society right and company right.
There must be clear boundaries from a company to gain consumer data to keep the
healthy business competitions, however how the company obtains consent from the
consumer should strictly be regulated by law.
o Third, increase consumer awareness toward data sharing policy. This is the
responsibility of all parties from retailers, consumers, and the government. Because
only with personal consent that aware of the activities a person engages with, the
potential issue will not happen.