Week # 6 Forum: Marketing, Security, Inventory, or Invasion of Privacy. How does the electronic environment impact one's right to privacy?

The increased availability of knowledge and information presents concerns and challenges of privacy, accuracy, intellectual property rights, and censorship. As a global citizen, you should be aware of these issues and consider how marketing and research tactics might impact your right or privacy.

Special Participation Instructions: Read each of the scenarios below. Select ONE (1) scenario to participate in this week. There are to be an EQUAL number of "initial" posts in each discussion. Locate articles that are different from your groups' posts. Within your group, hold a robust conversation about the topic. Visit the other scenarios and contribute to those conversations, as well. Your instructor will start each of the scenarios for you.

Using the Richard G. Trefry Library, locate and read a quality article that is two pages or longer on the scenario topic. In your post, answer the following questions:

What is the issue? Tell us about it as if we know nothing on the topic.

What are the pros and cons of the issue?

Should we care about it? Why or why not?

How might the issue impact you in reality?

What does your article add to the discussion? (sum up the article, and list it as a source in your post to the best of your ability)

Scenario #1: Loyalty Cards
When you go into many stores, cashiers frequently ask you if you have your courtesy or loyalty card. Companies use these cards to keep track of you, your purchases, and more. How much do these companies know about you? What are they doing with the information?

Scenario #2: RFID Tags
Walmart and other retailers are embedding RFID tags in items they sell to track inventory, but the chips still work long after you leave the store. What is RFID, and what might it mean for you?

Scenario #3: Video Surveillance
A recent Kenneth Cole ad campaign states, "You are on a video camera an average of 10 times a day. Are you dressed for it?" Surveillance cameras installed after 9/11 caught the bus that dumped sewage on Chicago tourists, and recently mounted cameras catch those who run red lights at many city intersections. Are we becoming a surveillance society? Who can put a camera up, and what happens to the tapes?