Broadening marketing’s contribution to data privacy

Abstract

Data privacy is one of the most important issues facing marketing today. Providing knowledge on the current state of privacy scholarship is an effective starting point to advance understanding and solutions to this important issue. Martin and Murphy’s (2017) multi-dimensional classification of scholarship related to consumer, organizational, ethical, and legal domains is an excellent review of contributions. The assumption from this multi-dimensional approach is that we may have identified the most important data privacy issues in marketing. While marketing scholarship has contributed to understanding that advances managerial decisions and public policy, there are dimensions that have not been addressed in existing research. Unfortunately, organizations and consumers cannot control the data privacy environment through ethical conduct, and the legal environment often fails to stop data piracy. Cybercrime, such as identity theft and online fraud, is a major concern of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).Information technology advances result in rapid change that moves through society, affecting all institutions. These advances are usually self-sustaining and serve as a catalyst for even more change. Issues relating to data privacy and big data emerge on a constant basis. For example, the FTC considers ransomware as one of the most challenging cybersecurity issues. Hackers, using software to access consumer and business computers, encrypt files including critical data and demand a ransom in exchange for providing a key to decrypt the files. There are firms, such as the NSO group, that legally sell surveillance tools to capture all activity on smartphones. These products are sold to government and law enforcement, and the company has an ethics committee to vet potential customers. Cyberarms operate in a legal, “gray” area and have been called “digital weaponry” (Perlroth2016).There is a need to evaluate and advance knowledge in this critical area of consumer protection. An assessment of advances through consumer, organizational, ethical, and legal domains should be helpful in describing and analyzing the data privacy environment. On the other hand, academic research needs to examine why data breaches occur and conduct research that could address the risk for consumers and organizations. Most data piracy comes from the external environment beyond the direct control of consumers, organizations, and regulators.My position is that academic marketing research is focused on existing conceptual frameworks, methods, and stakeholders and is not addressing the most important issues. I agree with Martin and Murphy (2017) that “marketing practice using consumer data and analytics has advanced at a more rapid pace than has marketing academic scholarship.” Many of the theoretical frameworks used in academic research have not advanced knowledge. The deep analysis of past privacy scholarship may not unearth directions for relevant future research. Privacy research should be grounded in existing knowledge and needs a refocus to address this rapidly changing digital environment. The focus should be on the issues that relate to protecting consumers, organizations, and enhancing public policy. The failure to address the uncontrollable environment related to cybercrime is a serious limitation.