Tutorial Questions 8 (Chapter 9)

Chapter 9

Ethical, Social and Political Issues In E-Commerce

End of Chapter Questions (p. 565):

1. Name some of the personal information collected by Web sites about their visitors. (Question 6)

Name, Address, Phone Number, E-Mail Address, Bank Accounts, Education, Credit card accounts, gender, age, occupation, browser type, preference type, transaction data.

2. Explain how Web profiling is supposed to benefit both consumers and businesses. (Question 12)

To business: it is the most effective marketing tool available nowadays, because it targets the customers who prefer the particular products offered by online businesses.

To customer: it is easier for them to find particular products online.

3. How could the Internet potentially change protection given to intellectual property? What capabilities make it more difficult to enforce intellectual property law? (Question 14)

4. What are some of the tactics illegal businesses, such as betting parlors and casinos, successfully use to operate outside the law on the Internet?(Question 18)

Project (p. 566):

1. Go to Google’s Preferences page and examine its SafeSearch filtering options. Now surf the Web in search of content that could be considered objectionable for children, to see how the parental controls function works. What are the pros and cons of such restrictions? Are there terms that could be considered inappropriate to the software but approved by parents? Name five questionable terms. Prepare a brief PowerPoint or other form of presentation to report on your experiences and to explain the positive and negative aspects of such filtering software.

External Questions:

1. List some of the ways that the Internet can be used to collect information about individuals. (p.716, E. Turban, D. King, D. Viehland and J. Lee, 2006)

2. If you were in the process of establishing a commercial web site, would you need to investigate the bona fides of linked site(s) if you provided hypertext links to other web sites? Could you protect yourself from legal disputation arising from users who gained access to the linked site through your own? If so, how? (p.263, E. Lawrence, J Lawrence, S. Newton, S. Dann, B. Corbitt, T. Thanasankit, 2003)