System 0032: Information Technology Ethics and Online Advertising

This report delves into the multifaceted ethical landscape of online advertising, examining crucial aspects such as privacy concerns, transparency, and the potential for misleading practices. It highlights the ethical dilemmas faced by advertisers and publishers, including issues like copied content, intrusive pop-up ads, and the use of search engine optimization tactics. The report further explores the social implications of online advertising, including the impact of stereotypes, the promotion of harmful products, and the influence on consumer behavior. Additionally, it addresses the legal frameworks and regulations governing online advertising, such as data protection, privacy, and the use of surrogate advertising. The report emphasizes the importance of ethical conduct to maintain consumer trust, protect brand reputation, and ensure the responsible use of online platforms. It concludes with a call for advertisers to prioritize transparency, social sensitivity, and adherence to legal standards to foster a trustworthy and effective online advertising environment.

RUNNING HEAD: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ETHICS
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Information Technology Ethics
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System 0032
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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Online Advertising......................................................................................................................................2
Ethical Issues...............................................................................................................................................4
Social Issues................................................................................................................................................6
Professional Issues......................................................................................................................................7
Legal Issues.................................................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................10
References.................................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
Online advertising is related to the promotion of goods and services using the internet. It is also
called internet advertising, web advertising, and online marketing. This includes promotion on an
online platform through social media marketing or search engine marketing. The concept of
online advertising is growing in the current era as most of the organizations prefer the online
channel for advertising their product as it is considered to be as the less costly way and has
higher reach as a comparison to another traditional way of advertising (Wojdynski & Evans,
2016). Nowadays online advertising is considered as the most effective way to expand the
business whether small or large through finding new customers, expand the reach and diversify
the revenues of the businesses. The scope of online advertising is wider that includes; paid
search, paid social, online campaign, text and visual ads, sponsored content. Email marketing
and remarketing (Kireyev, et al., 2016). Several issues are faced in promoting the product and
services through this platform. These issues are ethical issues as many of the businesses faces
issues like lack of transparency, privacy, and awareness about securely using online platform.
Some of the legal issues are the security of collected information of the customers, transferring
customer database, issues related to cookies, online profiling, domain registration, spam and
defamation (Assesson, 2018).
The report consists of the discussion on the ethical issues in online advertising that includes
marketing practices that to be considered as ethical on the internet. The major ethical issues that
are highlighted in this report are privacy, hoaxes, spams, and security. Legal issues are related to
the breach of acts or laws to make the advertising more effective or to reach out to more
customers through online platform.
Online Advertising
Online advertising is the most effective way to promote the products by using the internet as a
medium to target customers by delivering the right message to the right customer at the right
time. Online advertising has various benefits in this technological environment. The main
advantage is the quick promotion of the services and products of the businesses without any limit
(Dwivedi & Chen, 2015). The mode of online advertising covers the pop-ups, banner ads, search

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engine, and contextual ads. Many businesses nowadays using the online platform to promote
their products in the market it is necessary for the businesses to opt for the ethical practices or to
promote the product considering ethical framework and professional framework as using social
media for advertising is the easy way to reach more of the customers and to attract them
(Roberts, 2013). Online advertising includes many issues related to the ethical aspect,
professional aspect, and social aspect. These are the areas that should be kept in mind by the
online advertiser as then advertisement is effective or proven to be effective for the company to
build its image (Yang & Kang, 2017).
Ethics in online advertising is related to the moral compass by which the businesses get
assistance for the marketing communication. Ethics in online advertising highlights the factors
such as transparency and honesty in providing details to people through online platform, taking
care of the privacy aspect of customers and maintain social sensitivity (Hajli & Lin, 2016).
Social issues in internet advertising are the ones which affect the societal belief as advertisement
has impact on the society in different ways. Social issues are racism or showing cultural
differences through the online advertisement, gender biasness and more all these issues are
shown in online advertising. As businesses try to attract more customers through online
advertisement and shows pop up ads while people are using mobiles, ads on social media sites
such as Facebook, Twitter and other websites (Rocci, 2013).
Legal issues of the online advertising covers the aspects that are related to law or acts formulated
to protect the advertisers and customers from the illegal activities on the platform. Online
advertising involves various issues such as breach of laws by showing faulty ads, misleading ads
or political advertising is against the laws in UK.
At this digital age, the advertisement market through online platform has grown tremendously in
last years. The online advertisement requires online spacing and this space all sold by the
advertisers to the firms or to the adverting agencies through a automatic process that is called
programmatic advertising. Advertising has greater impact on the society and customers, online
platform changed the way advertisement is done and this growing platform facing many issues or
challenges in this segment (Winston, 2012). The essential element to make an advertisement
effective is transparency and disclosure of information in a true manner. On other side, data

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protection, privacy, ad blockers, content spinning, loss of control of advertiser are some issues
that covers under social, ethical and legal aspects. The lifeblood of current advertisement era is
social networks and search engines.
Ethical Issues
Internet is a powerful way at present to communicate with the world in a cheapest and most
effective manner. Online advertising is a way to promote or communicate to the customers about
the product that companies offer in the market. But this comes with the problems of ethical
standards. Publishers and advertisers face some ethical issues in online advertising or these
ethical issues might impact the customers. Ethical issues in online advertising are discussed
below that might impact the customers and loyalty of the brands or might ruin he brand image in
front of the customers (Martin, 2016). It is most important for the publishers, advertising
agencies, advertising networks and advertisers to avoid ethical issues and to opt for ethical
practices.
Copied Content: Content on websites and online advertising is copied from other branded sides
and publishers put it on other sites for personal benefit is an unethical way of advertising as
copyright of content is with the original writer and copied contents cannot be used in the online
advertising. (Fiesler, et al., 2016).
Pop-ups and misleading dialog boxes: Showing pop up ads may ruin the privacy of the
customers as visitors always get the ad pop up on their phones and sites is an irritating way of
forcing the things on the customers that is not an ethical aspect to carry on. Businesses or
publishers go overboard with theses pop up ads resultant in users inadvertently clicking on these
ads. Dialog boxes that showed during the searches by the visitors that mislead the users are also
an ethical issues due to that visitors opted for ad blockers application to stop seeing the pop ups
and dialog boxes (Reynolds, 2012).
Search engine optimization: All the advertisers and publishers are aware about the Search engine
optimization is a tool that can be used to increase the reach and traffic on the online ads or sites.
Some advertisers used black hat tricks to increase their search ranking in an unethical way. The

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BMW website used this trick to increase traffic in sites using inorganic method that is an
unethically activity due to that the site was removed from the Google index.
Privacy Consideration: Using cookies to take customers information and to collect information
through sites and then selling using it for benefits is acceptable but maintaining this privacy is an
important ethical aspect. Most of the advertisers used the data and keep it accessible or sell it to
other party that is the unethical way. Advertisers are not concern about the privacy issues that are
faced by the customers due to cross sell and upsell initiatives that bring customers and success
for the companies. Using customer information and privacy details is the main issue that is faced
by the customers because of digital advertising (Spiekermann, et al., 2015).
Ethical Issues in Online Advertising
Source: (Gay, et al., 2009)
Transparency and Social Sensitivity: Transparency has become the main issue in this digital age.
Online advertising generally are claiming false things about their product or not disclosing the
details that needed to be disclosed properly. False advertising is all about claiming the things
about product that are not included in the product it is done just to attract more customers toward
an advertisement. Social sensitivity is publishing the content that might affect the sentiments of
Transparenc
y
Privacy
Social
Sensitivity

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the public such as ads that promote racism, promote illegal activities and caste discrimination.
This sort of advertising is not ethical and considered as the unethical advertisement.
Confidentiality refers to keeping the information of others in a secure way; in any profession
confidentiality is an important aspect to consider. Online advertising brings various issues from
the side of customers as well as from the side of advertisers and publishers. The main highlighted
issue is privacy. Security in technological environment is the biggest problem that includes
leakage of information and hacking of system. These ethical issues are needed to be addressed
by the advertisers or publishers in order to make online advertising a platform in which visitors
can trust on otherwise it will ruin the brand image and there is no use of that technology which is
proven to be harmful for the people.
Social Issues
Online advertisement is directed at the society, any advertisement affect the society or mindset of
people in many ways. Online advertisement has impact on the values and belief of the country.
Each ad is formed keeping in mind the culture and values that a country and their people possess
otherwise online advertising will not make any sense. Advertising the alcohol, tobacco or
products that are ban in a country is a social issue that should be highlighted (Lipschultz, 2018).
Online advertising is criticized to manipulating the buyers or is more influential to change
buyer’s decision. Companies started to collect data of customers that includes their personal
preference, purchasing pattern and social affiliations without informing this about their
customers. Data is collected through online advertising and used by the businesses for their
personal benefits. They sell the data to generate additional income that is creating a social issue.
Social issues in online advertising are discussed below (Kizza, 2015).
 Showing advertisement that promote sexual activities harm the society and may promote
illegal activities
 Advertising of harmful products such as tobacco and alcohol is banned and promoting
these products through online advertising is a social issue that might impact the customer
mindset and leads to legal issues for the publisher and advertisers.

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 Excessive repetition of advertisement of the same product is not allowed. Most of the
companies publish their ads on regular basis that influences the viewers and that might
create problems.
 Online advertisement promotes certain stereotypes; such as showing women always
doing households chores in advertisement or showing ads that promote feminism that
might hurt the sentiments of other so these social issues are to be focused on in online
advertising because online platform is a platform that should be used in an effective way
as it has impact on society.
 The social issue that is highlighted mainly in this current era is that online advertising or
online platform provides price sensitivity and it showcase closely resemble products or
brands.
 Insecurity or issues in mind of people due to online advertising. This is the problem as
most of the youth influenced by online advertising and they start feel insecure about
small things this impact negatively on the customers, ads such as deodorants showcased
that in order to impress a girl it is important to be odor free that might boost the sales of
advertisers but bring a social issue (Kidd & Chen, 2016).
 Use of Surrogate advertising to showcasing the ads that are banned, companies are using
this tricks in online advertising to showcase their ads in different format such as showing
ad of alcohol in different way.
 Using offensive and obfuscating language is another issue that is proved as the
problematic in online advertising may of the publishers use language and words that
might impact the cultural and social believe of individuals this lead to banning of the sites
or publishers for a particular point of time.
The advertising through online platform reaches too many of the customers that impact on their
social lifestyle and their social behavior. It is an important area to concern about the social issues
at the time of online advertising. The issues related to society or the negative impact that internet
advertising has on the individuals. Companies and publishers take care of these issues so that all
these advertisement do not affect the society and harm the belief of others.

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Professional Issues
Professional issues are faced by the advertiser and publisher somehow the ethical code of
conducts for both the parties are different there are chances of conflicts between the parties. The
major professional issues that can be seen in online advertising are maintaining the relationship
with the advertisers and publishers in order to achieve the outcome. The professional work
demands confidentiality and the main issues in this digital age and in online advertising is that
publishers are not able to keep that confidentiality and pass the online data collected from one
company advertising to other company that is not an ethical way and not a professional code of
conduct. Information than publishers get from an advertising should be kept by the publishers
with them (Bott, 2009).
The main professional issue is anonymity, both the parties are open to each other and they
disclose information to other parties as online platform is accessible by all the people. So
maintaining anonymity in the business is bit difficult for the publisher and for advertising
networks and agencies. Secrecy in or non-disclosure of personal information of the parties
involved in the contract is necessary whereas this is problem in the case of online advertising.
Partners have to disclose each aspect to the publishers in order to publish and advertisement that
harm the privacy of any business and this can lead to big scams and fraud by the publishing
companies.
Copyright and trademark issues in the technological is the great area of concern this issue brings
many companies in trouble and due to that legal issues can arise for the parties. Copyright work
cannot be copied or used by others without the person permission who takes the copyright of
using that product. In online advertising copied content of other sites and advertisement content
of companies are used by the small companies that is the unprofessional way and this copyright
issue bring the company in trouble some situation. The main issue in online advertising is that
the person who did the work cannot get the credit or referencing the work is not done in case of
online advertising, the efforts of the person is not counted that is against the professional code of
conduct (Whitman & Mattord, 2016).
Consent of parties does not matter in advertising through online platform. Visitors who are not
interested in a particular ad have to see that forcefully because they have to access the site. The

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consent of customers is of taken while sharing their details to other companies that issue of
consent is counts under the professional issues because each profession demands the consent of
all the parties involved in the activity so online advertising is considered as the forceful
imposition of the ads on customers and influencing them by showing ads in repetitive manner
and sometimes that makes it difficult for the users to do their work without seeing the
advertisement.
Email scams are an email that claims to bargain something for nothing. These spam mails asked
to share data, bank details and invitation to a website with a detailed pitch. Online advertising
include advertising through email thus this leads to email scams where business try to catch the
attention of customers and that email includes click on a link, fake attachments and contact
numbers that lead to email scam.
Further professional issues in online advertising are viruses and worms, when visitors click on
the ad that may lead to viruses in system and that resultant in security breach of system.
Advertisers do false advertising in order to attract customers and when the visitors click on that
ad that resultant in duplication or collecting their search information or information related to
their preferences and advertisers sell it to others to earn additional income. That is an issue in
online advertising and due to that system viruses and worms visitors don’t click to an
advertisement on online platform.
Other professional issues include transferring data or information to others for sake of money,
taking privacy of the clients and customer in lenient manner, imposing ads forcefully while
people are searching, data hacking, sending in text messages to customers or non-targeted
audiences, bombarding with lots of e mail regarding the product details to customers and using
data for marketing without any consent of the parties, disclosing data to other, privacy issues and
copyright and trademark (Sobiek, 2016). All these issues are faced by the companies, customers
and publishers due to online advertising.

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Legal Issues
Legal issues in online advertising are related the websites and the ads that businesses put on their
portal. The legal issues can be faced by both the parties either by the ad publisher or by the
business. Some of the legal issues are discussed below:
False Advertising: Businesses mainly advertise their services or products in wrong manner in
order to attract the customers. That leads to opting for unlawful activities such as manipulation in
the content of advertising, not disclosing all the terms and conditions, and showing irrelevant ads
to the customers by getting their information from the cookies and portals (Murray, 2013).
Illegal Region: Targeting the market in which most of the activities are illegal, that brings the
legal issues in front of advertisers. For example, online ads that promote sports gambling is
illegal or may resultant in legal issues as gambling is legal in few parts of the world.
Advertising misplacement: Advertisers most of the time face the issue of ad misplacement that
means putting an ad in an inappropriate platform that ruins the brand image. Like putting
terrorism content on the website or terrorism material is not a legal thing. Unilever is the world
best advertiser withdrawn its advertising content from Google and Facebook due to inappropriate
content that might leads to legal issues if action was not taken by the company.
Advertisement Fraud: Legal issues that are seen in the online advertising are invalid traffic,
malware and infringed content. Invalid traffics or bots on the web are illegal way to increase
reach on the online advertising that is an illegal activity to gain traffic on the site ads placed.
Malware is software installed in the mobile of customers to increase repetitive views and clicks.
Copied content of another website put by the fraudster on their site is also an illegal activity in
order to generate income from others content (Grama, 2015).
Wrong audience targeting: Placing ads on website bring more income to the publishers but
putting irrelevant ads on website lead to potential legal issues. For examples putting adult
themed ads on children website is irrelevant and due to that uses can take legal actions against
the publishers.
The advertiser and publisher of online advertising both should focus on responsible advertising
as this has greater impact on the society. In this era of digitalization, trending advertisements

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catches people attention. So it is important for both the parties to ensure responsible advertising
and to take care of all the legal aspects in online advertising. Some of the steps that ensure the
legality of online advertising that are; targeting the right audience, promoting conscious buying,
promoting or encouraging the advertisement related to societal benefit, don’t give false hope or
false claim to the viewers and lastly trying to serving ads that are not offensive for the people
such as online ads does not promote racism, gender biasness and discrimination and should be
cultural sensitive (Lloyd, 2017).
Conclusion
Online advertising includes using the internet to promote products and services in the market and
also called internet advertising and digital marketing. In this digital era, all the transactions are
automated that widened the scope of online advertising. With the increasing scope and use of the
online platform for the advertising, various issues are faced by this sector that related to ethical,
social and legal aspects. Ethical issues under online advertising are related to privacy,
transparency, social sensitivity, data sharing, and data hacking and include different unethical
ways of getting reach on the advertisement displayed. Social issues cover the part where online
advertising negatively affect the society as any of advertisement shown on the online platform
are irrelevant or not as per the interest of the target audience. Some of the social issues are
surrogate advertising, security, stereotyping, promotion of harmful products and political
advertising. Online platform build rumors that are the main issue related to online advertising.
Legal issues are related to hacking, security breach, transparency, fraud and lack of self-
regulation are some issues in online advertising. Professional issues include lack of technical
skills, code of conduct and consent are some issues faced in online advertising.