Beyond Privacy: The Ethics of Customer Information Systems

Abstract

The rise of an ostensibly customer-centred corporate culture in the 1980s recognised the importance of "knowing the customer". As a result, customer information systems and associated practices of marketing, customer segmentation, and customer accounting have become significant elements in corporate customer-focus strategies. This paper discusses a range of ethical considerations that flow from the use of customer information systems and critically examines these systems in their organisational and social context. It is well-recognised that customer information systems give rise to concerns of privacy, but this paper raises perhaps more important ethical issues that relate to organisational transformation and significant links to issues of access, equity, alienation, and social exclusion.

Customer Relationship Malevolence: A Reflection on Accounting, Marketing and Customer Valuation

“…For Boyce (2000;2002) the process of segmentation reinforces already existing social stratification, and including data on issues as diverse as religious affiliation, race or gender, places these within calculative regimes and can lead to social stratification along these lines, and customers belonging to a particular religion, race or gender, can become excluded, al-ienated or marginalised from particular organisations or industries, such as in healthcare (Boyce 2000) or banking (Andon et al 2001;Carbo et al 2007;Persson, 2011).…”

“…Indeed, the use of customer databases has become commonplace since the 1980s that marketers have promoted practices of database marketing. Boyce (2002) remarks that this has become an important sub-field within the discipline of marketing and that IT systems and data warehousing have, correspondingly, become part of the contemporary landscape of marketing practice.…”

“…Customer valuations and subsequent customer targeting and retention and marketing strategies are already seen to be having effects in business areas as diverse as health insurance provision (Boyce 2000;Andon et al 2001), gas and electricity provision, and telecommunications and Internet service provision (Boyce 2002). The effects of customer valuations have also been seen in a range of basic financial services such as credit provision and bill payment services (Carbo et al 2007).…”

“…Additionally, there are ethical concerns over the use of data collection methods (Boyce 2000;2002;Palmer 2006) which can infringe upon a customer's privacy when using the internet, particularly involving the distribution of third party cookies and the storage of data collected from them (see Palmer 2006).…”

Consumer Databases, Neoliberalism, and the Commercial Mediation of Identity: A Medium Theory Analysis

“…As Boyce (2002) notes, "The central focus of CRM is… identifying, attracting, and retaining the most valuable customers to the firm…Segments are organised hierarchically and, based on the profitability (or potential), customer interactions are tailored accordingly" (110). This leads to an increasingly instrumental view of consumers "as mere assets to be exploited" (Boyce 2002, 116).…”