Privacy Research Paper, Debate

Privacy has become a big issue in recent months.  On the one hand, few
people like to get junk mail, or to receive a telemarketing phone call
during dinner.  Few people like junk email (also called spam on the
mainland).  On the other hand, customers like to be remembered and
called by name.  Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is an
important way to know your customer base, provide them a friendly
shopping experience, and try to sell them what they need.  Can CRM go
too far?  Can privacy be invaded in a bad way?  Is it okay to sell
customer data?  What are the trade-offs here?

The "research paper" phase of this assignment requires each team to
develop opinions about the privacy issue.  For your particular
industry, what is the right balance between privacy and friendliness
(data collection)?  What about other industries?

The research paper must be written up in an attractive and clear
format, probably single spaced with clear headings, and handed in.

The "debate" phase will happen in class.  Two teams will be selected
to debate the privacy question.  The team winning the coin toss will
pick whether to defend privacy or data collection, and the other team
must defend the other alternative.  Coin toss means that the teams
will not know in advance whether they need to defend privacy or data
collection.  They must come prepared to defend either one.

The team representing privacy will go first.  For five minutes, they
will speak, attempting to convince the class that privacy is really
the more important aspect of shopping on the web.

Next, for up to five minutes the data collection team can
cross-examine the privacy team, asking for clarifications or for
evidence to back up claims that were made.

Next, for five minutes the data collection team will speak, attempting
to convince the class that data collection is really the more
important aspect of shopping on the web.

Next, for up to five minutes the privacy team can cross-examine the
data collection team, asking for clarifications or for evidence to
back up claims that were made.

Finally, the privacy team gets three minutes to sum up their
arguments, tell why privacy is the way, and tell why data collection
is not the way.  Then data collection gets the same opportunity.

After the debate, the other two teams (the ones that were not in the
debate) will each vote by secret ballot to indicate which team won the
debate.  We will probably follow up with an open discussion of privacy
versus data collection, and see what conclusions we can reach.