John Smith Response

This is in response to Bruce Wichland’s post:
What do you think? Should he sell of the names for his workers? Is it ethical?
Selling the names of the people he surveyed without telling them would definitely be unethical. I agree with you on the fact that he provided privacy to all of the information that was given up by the surveyors, and if he takes the action and sells the names he would make many people angry. Then as you mentioned he would have to take responsibility which could be difficult even though they all know he was the one to make that decision. These are all mentioned in the AMA Standard of Ethics and all marketers should use these values. Also as you said he could call up all 2,000 of the surveyors and ask them permission for him to sell their names. This would be ethical, but would take up too much time. I would say that he should do this because he would be harming less people. If he had more employees than surveyors then I might consider something else. Do you agree with this?