Online travel agents provide information about various destinations and travel needs including airport information, air travel, hotels, and car rental. Their main services include bookings for air travel, hotels, and car rental. In order to use their services, you need to provide personal information as well as a login and password.
The online record can save time when booking a flight, a hotel, or a car. Instead of keying in payment information, users can simply login and pay by confirming the credit card of choice. In addition, users can also specify a departure airport, preferred airlines and travel preferences (for example, lowest price, shortest flight time, lowest number of connections). From time to time, users may also receive special offers that are not available to customers of other travel agents.
By providing personal information to an online travel agent, you gain potential benefits but lose some extent of privacy. The impact on your privacy depends on the online travel agent’s policy. Since the online travel agent retains all customer information, there is a chance that customer information may have errors or, after a certain period of time, become outdated. Further, the online travel agent may use customer information for other purposes, such as analyzing the customer’s web-usage patterns. Finally, it is possible that unauthorized persons (intentionally or unintentionally) get access to the personal information stored in a portal.
Consider a selection of online travel agents that differ in their privacy policies and the benefits that they possibly provide. All of the portals ask members for the following personal information during registration:
1st Dimension: Promotion.
Promotions are often offered to provide customers an incentive to try out a new product or service. Online travel agents sometimes offer frequent flyer miles from the airline of your choice. Generally frequent flyer miles are valued at two cents, however, depending on how miles are used, the value of a mile can vary from one cent to eight or nine cents. For our scenarios, the online travel agents offer either 250 frequent flyer miles, 500 frequent flier miles, or 1,000 frequent flyer miles. At 2 cents/mile this is equivalent to $5, $10, or $20 respectively. This is a one-time promotion.
2nd Dimension: Time Savings.
Consumers vary in their visit frequency. For our scenarios, we ask you to think of yourself as a customer that visits the online travel agent either once a day, once a week, or once a month. You can customize the online travel agent so that it displays the fares to the destination of your interest. For example, it can show you the currently cheapest air travel fare to the city where your parents/spouse/friend lives. If the fare is low enough, you may decide to visit them/him/her over the weekend.
While customization requires giving up some personal information, registering saves you time when inquiring air travel fares. For example, assume that it would take you 3 minutes to search for the fare to your destination manually (without registration) and that it would take 1 minute to log into online travel agent, which you have customized to present the fare automatically. If you visit the online travel agent daily, it takes 2 minutes longer to search for the fare manually than logging into the website, you will save 8 hours and 20 minutes in a year (2 minutes x 5 days a week x 50 weeks) when you register with the online travel agent. If you visit online travel agent weekly, you will save 1 hour and 40 minutes per year when registering over typing it in manually. If your visit frequency is monthly, you will save 24 minutes per year.
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 online travel agent 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 online travel agent, which is providing travel information and facilitating purchases. For our scenarios, the online travel agent will state either that your information will not be used for any purpose other than providing travel information and facilitating purchases (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 online travel agent 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 online travel agent 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 frequent flyer miles from the airline of your choice. Generally frequent flyer miles are valued at two cents, however, depending on how miles are used, the value of a mile can vary from one cent to eight or nine cents. The online travel agent offers either
§ 250 frequent flyer miles (equivalent to $5 at 2 cents/mile)
§ 500 frequent flyer miles (equivalent to $10 at 2 cents/mile)
§ 1000 frequent flyer miles (equivalent to $20 at 2 cents/mile)
2. Time Savings. You are a frequent traveler, but you are sometimes flexible with travel dates. You anticipate to be a repeat visitor of the website to learn about the lowest available fare. You estimate that you will return to the online travel agent either:
§ Once a day, realizing time savings of 8h 20min per year
§ Once a week, realizing time savings of 1h 40min per year
§ Once a month, realizing time savings of 24min per year
3. Secondary Use. Regarding the analysis of personal information and visits the portal will state either:
§ Your information will not be analyzed
§ Your information may be analyzed to review your preferences
4. Error. The online travel agent will provide either:
§ No option to review your personal information for mistakes
§ Option to review your personal information and correct mistakes
5. Improper Access. Your personal information will not be accessible to people outside the online travel agent. For access from within the company, the portal will state either:
§ No policy on access to personal information
§ Access to personal information only by authorized personnel, 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 choices of online travel agents from "Most Preferred" to "Least Preferred" by clicking on a choice and dragging it up or down in the list.
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