Ethics in Ecommerce - Basic concepts

Ethics should be the core element of both social and political considerations in conducting e-commerce.

There should be four principles that guide the moral actions of both individuals and organisations involved in e-commerce. They are responsibility, accountability, liability and due process.

  1.  Responsibility is the acceptance of duties and obligations as well as the potential costs of decisions that are made in the course of conducting ecommerce.
  2. Accountability determines who has to take account on the consequences of the actions be they individual or the whole organisation. Without accountability business’ are inherently incapable of ethical analysis or action.
  3. Liability extends the meaning of responsibility and accountability in the context of law where damages in can be recovered by other who are impacted by actions.
  4. Due process relates to how laws are correctly known, understood and applied.
    In e-commerce, these four principles enable an analyse of business ethics and those that are responsible for implementing them.

Information systems and technologies which enable ecommerce have been created by organisations and do not come with inherent social and cultural values. Organisations are required to use legal and political judgements to ensure that Internet developments and technology innovations do not result in socially unacceptable consequences to society. Enough control over ecommerce is required to strike a balance between social values and benefits.

Note: This article is based on an extract taken from a paper titled ‘Business Ethics in E-commerce’ written by Khanh Nguyen of Seinajoki University 2016
There should be four principles that guide the moral actions of both individuals and organisations involved in e-commerce. They are responsibility, accountability, liability and due process.
  1.  Responsibility is the acceptance of duties and obligations as well as the potential costs of decisions that are made in the course of conducting ecommerce.
  2. Accountability determines who has to take account on the consequences of the actions be they individual or the whole organisation. Without accountability business’ are inherently incapable of ethical analysis or action.
  3. Liability extends the meaning of responsibility and accountability in the context of law where damages in can be recovered by other who are impacted by actions.
  4. Due process relates to how laws are correctly known, understood and applied. In e-commerce, these four principles enable an analyse of business ethics and those that are responsible for implementing them.
Information systems and technologies which enable ecommerce have been created by organisations and do not come with inherent social and cultural values. Organisations are required to use legal and political judgements to ensure that Internet developments and technology innovations do not result in socially unacceptable consequences to society. Enough control over ecommerce is required to strike a balance between social values and benefits.
Note: This article is based on an extract taken from a paper titled ‘Business Ethics in E-commerce’ written by Khanh Nguyen of Seinajoki University 2016
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