CASE STUDY PROJECT: WEB SITE PRIVACY: HOW MUCH SHOULD WE WORRY? Chapter 14 Management Information Systems

Essay by masterpuppetUniversity, Bachelor'sA+, December 2002

download word file, 4 pages 4.9 4 reviews

Downloaded 576 times

INTRODUCTION:

Web site privacy and how much should we worry? This seems to be the major concern of Internet and network users today. There are many reasons for this concern ranging from ethical standards to the social impact of information systems. The internet has become one of the most important sources of personal data from organizations who want to reach their target market to users who want to take advantage of the convenience of doing research, shopping, or paying bills online. With this advance in technology, there are obvious risks that users must take, which are similar to opportunity costs in business. An opportunity cost is something that you will have to forfeit not necessarily money, but a risk that you must make in order to take advantage of an opportunity. Millions of people are now taking advantage of the convenience of the Internet and are highly concerned about their privacy.

This is one of the opportunity risks that they are taking. If a user or organization is too concerned about people having access to their personal information, and choose not to use the Internet, they are basically left with two options. One would be to not use the internet at all, but that would set them back about ten to fifteen years, which is not a very attractive option. The other would be to very easily go to a public library or University and use their system, but they still would not be able to shop online or take advantage of paying bills or online banking since personal information is needed to do so.

ANALYSIS OF THE CASE:

The material from this chapter gets very detailed into the legal principles of privacy and protection for Internet users and network users, but what seems to be more of an issue...