NCJ Number
158624
Date Published
1995
Length
0 pages
Annotation
This video profiles the characteristics and potential features of current and future online computer interactive programming in terms of what users are getting and giving up; the latter topic focuses on the privacy issue for users.
Abstract
The format for the video has the host/narrator interview both the providers and users of online interactive programming to determine what the providers wish to get from the users and what the users wish to receive from the providers. In one case, the host interviews a marketing executive for a beverage that provides the company's online computer identification code so consumers may correspond interactively with company representatives by e-mail. The aim is to obtain feedback from consumers so the company can provide the product most desired by the consumer. In the process, however, the company is obtaining information on the consumer which it believes will help them sell more of their product to the consumer. Also interviewed are the developers of "Yahoo," a directory of online services and information. A person who wishes to make money from the "Yahoo" directory explains how the information and topic selections of users can be recorded and sold to advertisers or companies who wish to market their product or service to persons whose interests appear tailored to the product or service offered. The overall theme of the other interactive programs profiled on the video is to obtain information on users while providing them the information or service they have voluntarily selected. Users' interactive selections may reveal their activity interests, subject interests, political views, values, beliefs, and behaviors. These are then recorded for use by those who wish to make a profit from this information. The question posed by the video is whether users are being seduced by interactive programming to give up information about themselves that will be subsequently used in ways that invade their privacy and pocketbooks.