The Ethical Concerns with Data Mining Essay example -- Computers

The Ethical Concerns with Data Mining Introduction to Data Mining and Warehousing With the advent of computer technologies that can store large quantities of data, cross reference that data, and compute patterns in the data, benefits abound in many applications. However, with it comes new ethical concerns regarding the privacy and security of the persons or entities in which the information was sourced. While permission may have been received with each bit of information, which may have appeared harmless to divulge, there are issues regarding the data's ownership -- its sharability in US or globally, its combination with other data, its accuracy, its security, and its overall end use [1] -- that could contribute to privacy or security "violations", where some kind of detremental harm could potentially be presented. Many questions exist. Should there be restrictions on what data can be stored? Should permission be required to be up front? How can the data collected be shared? Should there be a mandated set of rules on data collection and use in general for all businesses, governments, to uphold if they want to use data? What are the ethical evaluations of the issues, and would it be correct for a policy to be put in place to monitor the ethical issues? In this paper I will address how some organizations are dealing with the ethical approaches, but first, here is some background on the technology, its uses, benefits, misuses, and issues. What is Data Mining? What are its Uses? Data Mining, Data Warehousing, or Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining(KDDM), are technologies that encorporate computer hardware and software to store large amounts of collected data, usually about people, and then use the infor... .../30/2004 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/03/30/international0553EST0481.DTL 16. ACLU, "Group Calls for Investigation, New Laws to Restrict Data Surveillance", May 27, 2004, http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=15860&c=130 17. Leslie Miller, "EU, U.S. Sign Passenger Data Agreement", Associated Press, May 28, 2004, http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=4&u=/ap/20040528/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/airline_passenger_data 18. Amanda Holt, PR Ethics Resource Center 18. Amanda Holt, PR Ethics Resource Center 19. Utilitarian Ethics, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarian_ethics 20. Colleen McCue, Emily S. Stone, Teresa P. Gooch, "Data mining and value-added analysis", The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, Nov, 2003. http://articles.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2194/is_11_72/ai_111496582

Aphorisms in Tuesdays with Morrie Essay

â€Å"Accept what you are able to do and what you are not able to do.† (Albom 18) is the first and one of the most major aphorisms in Tuesdays with Morrie. I believe Morrie is speaking about recognizing your strengths, and not focusing so much on your weaknesses. He means, as he said, to â€Å"accept† your limitations. We are all affected by this aphorism everyday. We have limitations, and a lot of times we get so focused on our weaknesses we don’t take advantage of our strengths., and waste time simply trying to improve upon those weaknesses. For example, I’m not athletic. For a while, I focused on that and I let it upset me. I would set myself up to fail focusing on that, and wasting on my time trying to get rid of that lack of skill. Instead, I should have been focusing on non-athletic things that I am good at, and toning those skills, enjoying using them, rather than focusing on what I’m not able to do. â€Å"The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it.† (Albom 42) Here Morrie is speaking about the views culture and media release to us, how it preys upon us. Much of the social media is put out there to prey upon our insecurities, or create them to earn our business. We see this everywhere. Beautiful celebrities are plastered all over the tv, movies, and print, which makes us think that we aren’t attractive if we don’t look like them. You can see how prominent this is simply looking at a magazine cover. The titles for the articles, â€Å"The 10 Easy Workout Tips to Get You Slim Fast!†, â€Å"How to get Perfect Skin Now†, imply that you aren’t slim, with perfect skin, know how to get a boyfriend, be popular, etc. As Morrie said, you have to see above those and manage to stay confident even when the media is pressuring you no t to feel that way. â€Å"So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.† (Albom 43). In this quote Morrie speaks of the truly important things in life. He was telling this specifically to Mitch because it affected Mitch personally. He spent all his time focused on his work, and living wealthily that he pushed away his family, friends, Morrie, and his whole old way of life altogether. Like Mitch, this applies to many people, and me, too. We spend their whole life putting work, or money, or a certain person or thing as their number one. When this happens we think we’re happy, that we’re satisfied, and that we’re doing things we see as â€Å"important†, when we’re really wasting life. Morrie means you should spend your time doing the things that are best for you and everyone else that you truly enjoy. They should devote themselves to the best life possible, and thinking, if we died today, would we be truly satisfied with our life? We should be. In the quote, â€Å"Don’t let go too soon, but don’t hang on too long.† (Albom 162) , Morrie is speaking about his oncoming death, and experiences altogether. He’s saying that when we have very important experiences, we should take the time to experience them, and feel the emotions – not to move on immediately, but not too move on so fast that it keeps us from living our lives. I’ve lived this aphorism in the experience of losing friendships, and also living people, and not moving on quite as well as I should have. All you want to do is live in memories, and you can’t forget your regrets. Instead of feeling the emotions while you’re still living your life, you simply dwell in the depression and sadness. Morrie wants to prevent that from happening. When Morrie asks, â€Å"What if today were my last day on earth?† (Albom 64) he’s speaking about the elephant in the room with him everyday, which was that he was getting closer to his death everyday. He’s talking about thinking of everyday as your last day. If you died today, what would you regret not doing? Would you wish you had called your dad and apologized for what happened all those years ago? Would you wish you had finally told someone how you felt? Wish you had fulfilled your lifelong dream of skydiving? He’s talking about how, even thought it was most literal for him, any of us could die anytime, any day. We should live without regrets now, because you never know. You see this throughout real life. People die everyday, and many times when people find out they only have a certain amount of time left to live, they go out and do everything they’ve always meant to do. The problem is, we don’t always know our time, and Morrie was saying to live the way you mean to, living life not leaving things unsaid or undone.

Marketing Strategy Michael E. Porter s The Five Forces Model

Introduction This essay is based on Harvard Business School Professor and the father of modern business strategy Michael E. Porter’s â€Å"The Five Forces Model† (1979) and â€Å"The Value Chain† concept (1985) which will be critically analysing the internal and external competitive factors of â€Å"Adidas† sports brand company by applying Michael Porter’s theoretical frameworks that can be used to develop successful strategy for taking the company forward. Introduction of Adidas The global retail sporting goods market is enormous, â€Å"The market is forecast to reach an estimated $266 billion in 2017†. (Thomasson, 2014)Adidas AG international largest sportswear manufacturer in Europe and second biggest in the world after Nike. â€Å"Adidas business was†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"Our supply chain is global and multi-layered, with many different types of business partners, some of whom are directly contracted factories, while others are not.† (Adidas Group Website) Adidas AG has many alternative multinational suppliers that give the business massive advantage of switching factories easily when needed also high competition among suppliers have significant impact on raw material prices therefore Adidas has bargaining power over suppliers and for these reasons power of suppliers are low. For example, speaking to Bloomberg, â€Å"Anne Putz†, Adidas spokeswoman, said: We have lower purchase prices, as we can buy larger quantities of shoes and apparel. (Procurument Leaders, 2007) Power of Buyers Bargaining power of buyers is high as there are many alternative sports brands i.e. Nike, Puma, Under Armour and some smaller brands out there, for consumers to choose new styles, better price, higher quality etc. Also the buyer has advantage of switching between these brands easily with no extra cost. Threat of Substitutes There are many kinds of competitive brands who retail sports clothing for example Fred Perry, Converse, Lacoste, North Face amongst many others who are a big threat of substitutes for Adidas and also firms who are applying new technologies focused on sports relating clothing and accessories but fortunately Adidas has established a loyal customer base and continue to appealShow MoreRelatedPorter Five Forces3056 Words   |  13 PagesIn today s dynamic and competitive business environment, survival, growth and profitability are the essence goals of all industries. 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