It is more a relational concept, i.e., it is meaningful only in relation to others in some sort of social conduct. Privacy refers to the capability of negotiating boundary conditions with others in social relations. This conception of privacy includes control of both outflows and inflows of information in different social contexts. In other words, privacy is the ability of a person to decide what personal information is to be disclosed to others in different social encounters, including how others may use the disclosed information, and who may initiate contact with the person, in either proximate or virtual spaces. Secondly, the paper then will turn to explicate the concept of surveillance.
Surveillance means systematic observation.
Consumer surveillance refers to systematic observation of consumers' consumption behaviors and use patterns based on, as well as generated from, information yielded from interactions and transactions. In the case of Internet-based online marketing, consumer surveillance includes the collection and processing of consumer information for the purpose of generating consumer profiles for marketing purposes primarily. As mass production is being replaced by customized production, mass marketing is increasingly replaced by customized marketing to target, to locate and to persuade special segments of consumers. Consumer surveillance thus involves massive information collection on consumption behaviors and patterns. With the basic understanding of the conception of privacy and surveillance, privacy-friendly online marketing or consensual consumer surveillance thus may no longer be impossible but become negotiable.