 |
| The Sky and the Internet seem limitless... |
Boundaries do not
exist on the Internet. The Internet is an unregulated environment that was
developed over thirty years ago for military applications. Since the development, the Internet has
changed the world in many ways; business and marketing now have no boundaries
or do they? Questions have arisen
regarding laws—there are no Internet cops; the Internet is unregulated, which
creates a plethora of privacy issues for marketers and multinational companies
interacting on the world wide web with customers, vendors, and associates (Eid &
Trueman, 2002; Gong, Li, &
Stump, 2007; Usunier & Lee,
2005; Zugelder, Flaherty, & Johnson,
2000).
Privacy Issues
Privacy can
include a range of issues from trademark and copyright laws to private and
personal information of customers, suppliers, vendors, employees—the list is
quite long and unfortunately affects every individual and company that utilizes
the Internet as a medium for communication and commerce. Special interest do not enter into any
Internet transaction—the government is not able to regulate or protect;
however, the country where the money is tendered may offer
some control of business on the Internet regarding financial transactions (Charters, 2002; Dixon, 2005; Javalgi, Radulovich, Pendleton, & Scherer, 2005).
Importance of Privacy
How important is privacy to you? As a customer, an expectation that the
company will not share personal and financial information has been promised and
broaching this trust presents problems and lawsuits for multinational
companies. Most of the search engines
have been in lawsuits regarding privacy laws, especially trademark laws. Google pioneered the search engine platforms
and thus has the competitive advantage amongst search engines—advertisers
utilizing this tool would most likely get better results. Now, here is the question in this scenario—should
Google be allowed to keep the search engine technology proprietary or should it
be made public because it is on the Internet and could in theory control the
traffic flow of most Internet searches (Troxclair, 2005)?
Privacy and International
Regulation
Traditionally
copyright laws have protected those that design and create, whether an idea or
product; however, in an unregulated environment like the Internet is proving to
be a more difficult task than one might imagine. Even though websites are encrypted, have
secure servers and take recommended precautions, security on the Internet is an
ever changing and growing environment. Multinational companies have privacy
issues that affect the security of the entire supply chain and control of
information is primarily up to the organization (Dixon, 2005; Javalgi, et al.,
2005; Kirca et al., 2011; Witkowski, 2005).
Multinational Companies and Privacy Strategies—Outcomes and Options
Each country in the world is going to have its own unique
issues with privacy laws and multinational companies doing business online,
just as can be noted in the differences of Hofstede's cultural dimensions of
countries and organizations (Usunier & Lee, 2005). Some considerations for multinational
companies and implementing cyberspace commerce internationally include: each
country can and most likely will have legal issues regarding privacy regarding
customs and ethics, social responsibility, online contracts, liabilities,
torts, taxes, breach remedies, piracy—copyright and trademarks. The more Internet traffic increases so does
the chance that privacy laws will be abused or broken. Based on research, the outcome of successful
international e-commerce is subjective to culture and each countries laws. Privacy strategies should be designed and
implemented by corporate social responsibility policies and
procedures—accounting practices and privacy should be ensured by legislations similar
to the United States Sarbanes-Oxley accounting laws of 2002 (Taylor, 2000; Troxclair, 2005; Zugelder, et al., 2000).
Google and other
search engine companies are in litigation regarding privacy laws, such as
trademark infringement. Litigation is an
expensive option for companies and other more common sense options would be to
abide by the law of the land with regard to doing business and marketing as
long as the law is ethical and culturally acceptable (Gong, et al., 2007; Javalgi, et al.,
2005).
Recommendations with Justifications
Recommendations
are to know the culture of the country in which you are marketing and have
e-commerce websites, rely on historical research to ensure privacy laws are not
broken internationally. This control and
regulation must be the responsibility of the company. Multinational companies should not rely on
the governments of any country regarding the Internet and privacy laws;
instead, they must rely on their own corporate responsibility policies and
procedures. Justification comes from the
following fact regarding copyright infringement,
Among the most
notorious offenders are China, India, Brazil, and Taiwan, where copyright
protection ranges from weak to almost non-existent. This presents a potential
problem for the future development of international e-commerce, since these
countries represent a potentially huge online market in the next decade (Zugelder, et al., 2000).
Usunier, J. C., & Lee, J. A. (2005). Marketing Across Cultures (4th ed.). New
Jersey: Printice Hall.
No comments:
Post a Comment