Your rights and responsibilities in the information age. The Internet provides more information to more people quicker than any other tool in history. The availability of information has opened up new worlds to explore, especially in e-business. From marketing and advertising to customer service and product support, the ways in which the Internet can improve business are limitless. A new Internet business term, data mining , has emerged to describe the practice of gathering information about consumers over the Internet.
Merchants use that information about their customers to provide more personalized services.
Today, businesses are relating better to their customers, and customers are getting more information about the products and services they're interested in. But there's another side to the story. On one hand, association executives need to know everything they can about their members to better market the association to those members and possibly others. On the other hand, members, who are the association's principal customers, may want control over the use of that very same information. In the law, this issue is referred to simply as privacy.