During the process of pursuing maximum profit, stakeholders should take business ethics into great consideration as it is the bottom line which should never be overstepped. This is even more significant in the age of big data.
Facebook, the social media giant at present, has been reported that it used users’ likeness in advertisements without their permissions. In addition, it has also said that facebook got involved in the activity called “like” Fraud, where it sold pages with a huge number of “likes” to companies who want to build substantial social following.
Facebook’s misconducts have aroused public fury and growing concerns about data privacy. If facebook continues to secretly use the users’ information for business purposes, it will likely lose a large part of its users and seriously hurt its revenue in the long-run. Business is founded on the mutual trust among stakeholders. If the foundation of this trust collapses, the whole business will be destroyed as well. In the age of big data, companies have the capacity to track tens thousands of choices and decisions customers made online. And they can use the data to help them make marketing decisions and even manipulate customers’ conducts. Moreover, the regulation of the online market is not perfect yet. Therefore, business ethics are more required to keep the market in order. With the help of technology, companies have far more power to maximize their profits. However, rather than focus on what they can do, companies should consider more about what they should do while pursuing their benefits.
Reference:
- James Brusseau, Ph.D. “Facebook and the Unavoidability of Business Ethics”
“The Business Ethics Workshop” (online)
http://toddbacile.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/facebook-and-business-ethics-five-questions- to-ponder/
- Todd Bacile, Ph.D. “Five Ethics Questions about the Social Giant” Jan. 21 ,2014
http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/business-ethics/s05-04-facebook-and-the-unavoidabilit.html
- Robert Klitzman, M.D. “Why Facebook Should Follow Ethical Standards — Like Everybody Else”
Huffington Post 07/07/2014
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-klitzman-md/why-facebook-needs-to-fol_b_5557862.html