How to get ethics into e-commerce?
About how luxurious or necessary a question this really is.
What if we would not have to motivate, why to talk about ethics at all in e-commerce/e-government/online interaction…?!
I will leave this hypothetical question for another day, because today we still have to. Ethics is not naturally a standard in business discussions, it needs introduction. And with that comes the question of its role.
So what kind of role can ethics play in online business?
Is it just an add-on, a luxury we turn to as soon as our profitability is where we want it to be? Or quite the opposite, a conditio-sine-qua-non I cannot even begin to play in the digital sphere?
The dynamics of the discussion
This was the question of the opening talk at yesterdays’ “Ethics in eCommerce Summit” at the Royal Instiution in London which brought together data ethicists, CDOs, retailers, producers, researchers, activists, as well as consultants and service providers, all of them ready to get serious about the question of privacy and its importance in online business.
The details on speakers and the program are still online for those of you interested.
An inspiring variety of ideas and promising examples of how we can implement what we know to be better than the status quo.
And as we saw this quickly gets political: as there are relevant news every day and South Africa, the USA, the EU and hosting country UK take their own very different paths.
Ethics just “is”
In my view ethics in e-commerce, just as anywhere else, is neither luxury or necessity. It just “is”. It is always present, no matter how you label it. It is something emerging on what you do in your day-to-day life.
Behaving in a certain way, we show our true values. If you are cutting the line, you don’t do this accidentally. Ultimately, it comes down to the belief that your time is more valuable than grandma’s or the parent’s with stroller who was queuing just as long as you - but you beat them in speed, rushing in faster. Actions speak louder than words about what you think and care about.
Same with privacy concerns of your audience and their data.
Break it and you’re out.
The way you treat people, shows to anybody what can be expected from you. This is true in business and more specifically in online business as well.
As humans we are moral agents. Judging our own and other’s behaviour according to rules and values is not an additional task, we can decide to carry out or not. It is at the core of our perceiving and thinking as a social species, it’s a default. Being social animals we are vulnerable and need each other to flourish. Therefore we have to be sure some things hold when we interacting with others. Call it morals, call it values, call it ethics. (I will not be picky about definitions because it is not relevant to the point I want to make.)
The point I actually want to make is: Ethics is not like a law. There is a difference in escapability and perspective. Break the law and some kind of peer group may still applaud you for maximizing your own benefit. But go against the moral rules of your peer group - and you will be kicked out! No group can allow their members to destroy their base of trust.
This is how serious ethics this. And this is why I am not talking about GDPR or EU AI act, but about privcay instead.
Call in the pragmatists
Now, pragmatic people might side with the status quo and point out while all this may be good and true, it is just theory. Practice is that with the internet we have an infrastructure in place that does not respect privacy.
And I agree. Yes, we designed it having different things in mind. But this does not mean we designed it as an “ethics-free space”. There is no such thing. Where are humans is ethics. The internet is giving its ethical answers all over the place. But these answers show bad practice. We designed it wrong. And now we have come to a point where we no longer can and want to accept that.
As we cannot escape ethics and we now see that we cannot accept the status quo anymore, we will have to change it.
It is no longer an if. It’s a how. We have a job to do.
Happy at work
It has become clear, why are we supposed to create ethical infrastructure: to solve existing problems and future proofing our business.
So, how do we actually do it? While there are many good ideas to be found. There is no final recipe yet.
And here again is a difference to laws: We are developing these ethical do’s and dont’s not by official statements. They are work in progress and we are shaping them at the same time as we are applying and learning new technologies and procedures.
Therefore it is not “bad” or a “failure” that we now have to give us rules to play by for the AI-era. It’s the natural process.
But just because something is evolving and might change tomorrow does not mean it’s not important. It just shows that it’s alive.
Our ideas and expectations concerning privacy are a moving target. So then: let’s do the work! Let’s embrace this process and share some good energy while working on it.
This is what happened yesterday and I want to thank the Ethical Commerce Alliance for holding space and hosting this summit.
And a big thank you to all the cheerful and like-minded people I had the honour and pleasure talking to the last two days!
#ethics #ethicalbusiness #privacy #datadriven #Purposedriven #contentmarketing #contentstrategy #ecasummitlondon2023 #privacyconscious #gdpr #euaiact