The privacy issues being faced by consumers, due to disclosure of personal information and further misuse of this information can be equated to extortion. On many websites, users do not even have the 'opt out' option. The blatancy of the acts of privacy invasion by websites is growing. Sometimes, the consumer is not even aware that he has divulged personal information. For example, certain websites that require membership, would have you fill in credit card details along with your first name and last name, and then store the details in its database. The user is unaware, as he/she might have not given his/her true first name while creating a profile, but would start receiving promotional emails with their correct information from the sister sites of the main website. Recently, last July, author George Orwell's book, "1984" and "Animal farm" were deleted from Amazon's Kindle e-readers. The company cited a problem with rights to the books and issued refunds to the buyers.But, an Associated Press story said, the company's action also "startled many Kindle customers, who didn't know Amazon had the neo-Orwellian ability to erase content that had already been downloaded to their devices.Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos apologized, saying it was "stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles." The company also offered $30 to Kindle customers whose copies of the Orwell classics had been deleted. This shows, the dangerous extent to which websites offering online transactions, can access, monitor, control and edit information, due to the invisible link connection, users are not aware of.
U.S. retail E-commerce sales which have been steadily increasing over the years are going to provide impetus to the discount store industry. According to the Census Bureau , “The estimate of U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the second quarter of 2010, adjusted for seasonal variation, but not for price changes, was $39.7 billion, an increase of 2.6 percent from the first quarter of 2010. Total retail sales for the second quarter of 2010 were estimated at $971.4 billion, an increase of 1.1 percent from the first quarter of 2010. The second quarter 2010 e commerce estimate increased 14.0 percent from the second quarter of 2009 while total retail sales increased 7.5 percent in the same period. E-commerce sales in the second quarter of 2010 accounted for 4.1 percent of total sales”. Thus, retail sales can expect value addition from increase in e-commerce. Therefore, in this scenario, it is necessary for the FTC to keep checks on the websites and see to it, that consumer confidence in e-commerce does not take a beating due to privacy issues. One of the major reasons that FTC recommendations appear soft, can also be attributed to the lack of political will.
Sources: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35427715/ns/technology_and_science-security/
http://www.census.gov/retail/marts/www/retail.html
