Business Commons^™

Privacy And Consumer Agency In The Information Age: Between Prying Profilers And Preening Webcams, Nikhilesh Dholakia, Detlev Zwick

College of Business Faculty Publications

This article is about the ability of the consumer to control his or her destiny in the new electronic marketspace. Two seemingly opposite phenomena – the need for privacy and the desire for exhibitionism and voyeurism – are vying for attention on the media landscape. We believe the simultaneous occurrence of privacy concerns and ultraexhibitionism is not coincidental. Indeed, exhibitionism and voyeurism seem to offer new tools for consumer resistance against the electronic surveillance systems in networked markets and are inextricably linked to consumers’ desire for control over their intimate personal information.