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?

John Smith's Situation

Even though John Smith is in need of $8,000, he should not sell the names to the car dealer. This would be very unethical and would not follow the AMA Statement of Ethics. As stated in this document, marketers need to exhibit honesty, responsibility, fairness, trust, respect, transparency, and citizenship. If John were to sell the names, those $2,000 people would definitely lose trust in his marketing research firm because they were not truthful in what they did by not telling the people he was selling their names. John’s firm has to be honest in every situation that arises. If he desperately needs the money then he could call all of the $2,000 people and ask them if this would be okay to sell their names. However, this would be so time-consuming and may cost some extra money, but it would be more ethical than just selling the names. If the firm were to sell the names, John would have to take full responsibility for his actions. I feel as if this would be hard to do because most of those people would be furious to know that their names were sold. They would then most likely call the firm and want an explanation and I think this would be hard for John to do. He will be harming the people he surveyed along with his own firm. So John needs to find another way to obtain money because this situation is just too unethical for him to go about doing. Do you feel as if John should take the risk and sell the names?