Financial portals offer online, real-time stock trading and price quotation services. Their services for members include up to the minute stock price quotations, stock order placements and executions, and professional advices on portfolio management. In order to use their services, you need to create an account by providing personal information as well as a login and password.
The account record can save time for members when they request for stock price quotations and market analyses. Further, portfolio management is faster and easier when the portals store members’ stock portfolios and preferences. Financial portal members may also receive discounts on commission fees (for stock transactions) and service fees (for stock price quotations).
By providing personal information to a financial portal, you gain potential benefits but lose some extent of privacy. The impact on your privacy depends on the portal’s policy. Since the portal retains all member information, there is a chance that member information may be stored with errors or, after a certain period of time, become outdated. Further, the portal may use member information for other purposes, such as analyzing the member’s web-usage patterns. Finally, it is possible that unauthorized persons (intentionally or unintentionally) get access to the personal information stored in a portal.
All of the portals ask members for the following personal information during registration:
Consider a selection of financial portals that differ in their privacy policies and the benefits that they possibly provide. For the purpose of this exercise assume that all financial portals offer the features that you value. In the following screens, we describe the various dimensions that you may regard as important when deciding which financial portal to sign up with.
1st Dimension: Promotion.
Promotions are often offered to provide customers an incentive to try out a new product or service. Financial portals typically offer a discount on the commission fee for the first stock transaction. For our scenarios, the financial portals offer a discount of $5, $10, or $20. This is a one-time promotion.
2nd Dimension: Visit frequency.
Consumers vary in their visit frequency. For our scenarios, we ask you to think of yourself as a customer that visits the financial portal either once a day, once a week, or once a month. The financial portal will keep a record of your stock portfolio and will list the current stock prices after logging into the website. While this requires giving up some personal information, registering saves you time when inquiring stock prices. Another advantage offered is the opportunity to customize the portal to your own personal liking.
3rd Dimension: Secondary Use.
Websites may state in their privacy policy what they intend to do with your personal information and your interaction with the website. For example, the financial portal may analyze your web-usage data to optimize the website design or to learn about your preferences for products or services. This type of analyzes are called ‘Secondary Use’ as they do not facilitate the primary purpose of the financial portal, which is providing financial information and executing transactions. For our scenarios, the financial portal will state either that your information will not be used for any purpose other than facilitating stock quotations and transactions (i.e., no secondary use) or that your information may be analyzed for other purposes, such as revealing your web-usage.
4th Dimension: Error.
Websites often allow customers to review their personal information after it is saved. This option is often provided to correct mistakes or update personal information. However, many websites do not offer this option at this point. For our purpose, the scenarios will state that the financial portal will either provide no opportunity to review your personal information for mistakes or provide the option to review your personal information and correct mistakes.
5th Dimension: Improper Access.
Websites typically guard the data from intrusion from the outside. However, within a company the data is often accessible to many people in various departments. For example, the personal data may be accessed by the IT department that stores the data as well as by the marketing & sales department that may use the data to tailor their offerings. Some online retailers restrict access to the data internally to authorized personnel. These people often have training in privacy issues. For our purpose, the scenarios will state that the financial portal will either have no policy on access to personal information or provide access to personal information only to authorized personnel.
The following scenarios describe portals that differ in the privacy policy and your anticipated usage of the portal. Here is a summary of the portal characteristics:
1. Promotion. For signing up you obtain a discount on commission fees from the financial portal for your first stock transaction. The financial portal offers a discount of
§ $5
§ $10
§ $20
2. Visits. You anticipate to be a repeat visitor of the portal to obtain stock price information or place stock orders. You estimate that you will return to the financial portal either:
§ Once a day
§ Once a week
§ Once a month
3. Secondary Use. Regarding the use of your personal information the portal will state either:
§ Your information will not be used for any purpose other than facilitating stock quotations or transactions
§ Your information may be analyzed for other purposes, such as revealing your web-usage preferences
4. Error. The financial portal will provide either:
§ No option to review your personal information for mistakes
§ Option to review your personal information and correct mistakes
5. Improper Access. Regarding the access to your personal information, the portal will state either:
§ No policy on access to personal information
§ Access to personal information only by authorized personnel from within the company, who have been trained in privacy issues
Below you should see a list of 18 choices that are described by various combinations of the above five attributes.
Sort the following 18 description of financial portals from "Most Preferred" to "Least Preferred" by clicking on a choice and dragging it up or down in the list.
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