Internet Marketing Ethics

Marketing is different from selling and, as Peter Drucker defines it, "the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous," that is, "to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself" (quoted by Nantel and Weeks 9). The emergence of the Internet has provided an unexpected wealth of new possibilities to marketers and the novelty of this situation is the immediate cause of many of the primary ethical problems that arise. As Krauss notes, the upfront costs for Internet consumer research may be higher than those of older methods. But, in the end, "costs for Internet data collection can be 90 percen

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dvertising are even less than for adults" (DeFalco 54). In the case of the Internet, of course, parental sanction has to be quite specific, i.e., in the use of credit cards. But influencing children who will, in turn, sway their parents' decisions is distinct from influencing adults. But the importance of children's perceived needs and desires in the economy is, in fact, enormous. As Furger reports, "children ages 4 through 12 had a direct influence on $170 billion in sales of products and services in 1995" and indirectly influenced nearly twice this amount (36). It is sometimes argued that children readily become aware of the distinction between advertising and entertainment. Yet children, even after years of exposure to advertising, often lack the sophistication to distinguish all the ploys used by television marketers and, even if they can do so, they meet new types of advertising and marketing on the Net. One of the biggest innovations of Internet marketing is that, in view of the lack of regulation, the line between advertising and content is frequently nonexistent. Children, even if they comprehend the difference between content and advertisements on television, are unprepared to look out for their own interests in
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Nantel Weeks, Internet Marketers, Internet Children, Trade Commission, Internet Ethics, Scavenger Hunt, TV Furger, , Milton Friedman, Crackle Pop, marketing ethics, marketing strategies, consumer information, deceptive practices, internet ethics, krauss 18, nantel weeks, advertising content, internet marketing, silverstein 30, somewhat deceptive practices, nantel weeks 10, internet ethics 10, 7 dec 1998, marketing 7 dec,
Approximate Word count = 2305
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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