Objectives of knowledge management

Chapter 4
E‑environment
Table 4.4 summarises how these different types of customer information are collected and 
used. The main issue to be considered by the marketer is disclosure of the types of informa-
tion collection and tracking data used. The first two types of information in the table are 
usually readily explained through a privacy statement at the point of data collection, which 
is usually a legal requirement. However, with the other types of information, users would 
only know they were being tracked if they have cookie monitoring software installed or if 
they seek out the privacy statement of a publisher which offers advertising.
Ethical issues concerned with personal information ownership have been summarised by 
Mason (1986) into four areas:
● 
Privacy – what information is held about the individual?
● 
Accuracy – is it correct?
● 
Property – who owns it and how can ownership be transferred?
● 
Accessibility – who is allowed to access this information, and under which conditions?
Fletcher (2001) provides an alternative perspective, raising these issues of concern for both 
the individual and the marketer:
● 
Transparency – who is collecting what information and how do they disclose the collec-
tion of data and how it will be used?
● 
Security – how is information protected once it has been collected by a company?
● 
Liability – who is responsible if data are abused?
All of these issues arise in the next section, which reviews actions marketers should take to 
achieve privacy and trust.
Data protection legislation is enacted to protect the individual, to protect their privacy 
and to prevent misuse of their personal data. Indeed, the first article of the European Union 
directive 95/46/EC (see 
http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/privacy/
) specifically refers to 
personal data. It says:
Member states shall protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons [i.e. 
a named individual at home or at work], and in particular their right to privacy with respect 
to the processing of personal data.
In the UK, the enactment of the European legislation is the Data Protection Act 1984, 
1998 (DPA). It is managed by the ‘Information Commissioner’ and summarised at 
www.
ico.gov.uk
. This law is typical of what has evolved in many countries to help protect personal 
information. Any company that holds personal data on computers or on file about custom-
ers or employees must be registered with the data protection registrar (although there are 
some exceptions which may exclude small businesses). This process is known as