The Ethics of Internet Marketing

Introduction

Marketing and advertising plays a key role in a market society. The more competition there is, the more important marketing becomes. The Advertising Standards Authority states "no advertisement should mislead by inaccuracy, ambiguity, exaggeration, omissions or otherwise" (Wyburd, 1998, p. 43); all highly subjective criteria. There are many questionable areas in advertising such as the use of misleading or half-truths used to win customer and the subjective standards of decency often used to limit by the ever-present sexual exploitation of women to sell everything from washing machines to tires.

Marketers must confront many legal issues in today's society in order to create a successful business. Many marketing elements are within their control however they must also deal with the competitions marketing strategies or new technologies. Marketers are quickly leaving their television, print, and radio ads to the way of the future, the Internet. Businesses local, regional, and national have quickly embraced the Internet as an inexpensive means of advertising to reach a larger target audience. The Internet has become the one of the most effective ways advertise, and sell goods and services. The Internet can simply be defined as a network of networks which produces a “new medium of worldwide human communication” (The Cyber ethics Reader p.ix). Although this opens up a world of possibilities for the Marketing profession, they must also be careful in following what has now become known as “Cyber law.”

Cyber law is defined as:

“Encompassing all the cases, statutes, and constitutional provisions that impact persons and institutions who control the entry to cyberspace, provide access to cyberspace, create the hardware and software which enable people to access cyberspace, or use their own computers to go “online” and enter cyberspace (UCLA Online Institute)”.

The difficulty with many in the Marketing professional is that a large amount are not trained in the law, or do not consider legal implications of their marketing actions. As Marketers enter the new frontier of marketing on-line, there are many “Cyber laws” that they must adhere to such as domain names, trademarks copyrights, jurisdiction, security, and ethics.

Ethics of Internet Marketing

Just like accounting or law professions, marketing has a code of ethics to uphold. Marketers are personally responsible for each and every action and therefore it is up to them to make appropriate decisions regarding the marketing strategies. A Marketer's professional conduct is guided by four simple rules (American Marketing Association):

The basic rule of professional ethics: not knowingly to do harm;

The adherence to all applicable laws and regulation;

The accurate representation of their education, training and experience; and

The active support, practice and promotion of this Code of Ethics

Along with these rules honesty and fairness towards clients, customers, and employees is important as well. They must uphold each of these rules through every part of the marketing process from promotions to pricing. Although marketing on the Internet is a fairly new concept, a Code of Ethics for Marketing on the Internet has been created to protect consumers online ...