Ethics on Marketing

Octopus─ Selling personal information

Octopus Card is named as the most successful digital payment tool around the world. It is widely used in Hong Kong due to its convenience. According to Octopus, Over 22 million Octopus are in circulation, means each HongKonger owning more than 3 cards. Over 12 million dollar transactions are settled by Octopus card.

In 2010 , the smart card company is accused of selling the personal information of Earn and Redeem Reward participants to the third party.(mainly to retail company, such as cosmestic company, insurance company etc).Since2006, the company had sold nearly 2 million customers’ private data  and generated HK $44 million from it

When people participate in the Earn and Redeem Reward, they need to sign a contract. The contract includes few-page long conditions and terms. Moreover some terms are written at the size of 1-1.15mm font. Although the terms had mentioned that Octopus had the right to sell the personal data to its partners, the practice of Octopus is obviously unethical.

American Marketing Association(AMA) has promoted a code of ethics. It includes Honesty, Responsibility , Fairness ,Respect ,Openness and Citizenship. Honesty requires the company telling truth to the stakeholders in all situations and at all time. Octopus had not met honesty requirement undoubtedly. Written the crucial terms at the size which is the clients cannot easily watch. And did not mention to the clients the company had the right of selling their personal information to others when they signed for the agreement. Dose the company expect the clients will watch and understand all the terms and conditions? According to a survey conducted by Bloomberg in 2010, more than 90 percent of the respondents said they did not read the personal information statements when they applied for Octopus services. The practice of Octopus is a trick in a certain extent. Once the scandal is disclosed , Octopus decided donating all the unethical...