Targeting vulnerable populations: The ethical implications of data mining, automated prediction, and focused marketing

This article presents an overview of the ethically questionable business strategies of data mining and automated prediction with respect to vulnerable populations of consumers. It first provides a summary of the privacy and ethical issues that arise when high‐tech internet‐based organizations collect and analyze large quantities of personal data from the users of their systems and how these data are analyzed to make assumptions and projections on individual behaviors. It then discusses how these actions might be technically legal but violate established moral and ethical standards. The paper also highlights the role that governments can play in limiting the ability of large tech‐based companies to mine personal information for commercial application. The article closes with suggestions for future research.