Digital Marketing and the Ethical Code for Behavioral Tracking: Issues of Privacy and Consumer Trust

Abstract

Monitoring customers’ behavior in terms of their preferences, desires and search history might be convenient for customers themselves. They might look at the idea as extreme care and attention from the organization in their customers. However, looking at this idea from an ethical lens may take us to a different level. The current research seeks to examine the ethics of privacy and consumer trust of behavioral tracking in digital marketing in terms of (privacy, informed consent, transparency and disclosure, data security, fairness and non-discrimination, opt-out and control). Depending on quantitative methodology and utilizing a questionnaire that was self-administered by (444) customers; results of analysis indicated the acceptance of study’s main hypothesis as ethics of behavioral tracking has a statistical influence on privacy and consumer trust, the hypothesis scored a t value of 37.894 as being accepted and statistically significant. Among the chosen sub-variables, “privacy” scored the highest in influence a t value of 49.871. This meant that when consumers are assured that their privacy is valued, they will spend their time freely interacting with business entities, provide their information, and embrace customized services with the confidence that their data will not fall in the wrong hands. Study recommended that businesses ought to make it their policy to publicly declare how and in what ways they are collecting and recording data. The other key consideration is to ensure that the customers understand how and why their data is being collected, processed and safeguarded. Further recommendations were presented in the study.