Often, organizations may find themselves facing a situation whereby obeying one moral imperative will result in transgressing another moral imperative although neither of them will be acceptable or preferable given the situation. Google Corporation encountered the same situation after launching a Chinese language website in China. According to business standards, all international companies have to comply with the law of any nation they are operating. For Google, state censorship in China collided with the corporation's global ethical standards that required no censorship for the company. The censorship laws of China eventually led to several hacking incidents of Chinese Google users which gave rise to issues concerning Google user’s privacy and security.
Over the years, debates have risen over how customer privacy and security should be handled by organizations. Several companies have been faced with dilemmas when it comes to ensuring that confidentiality of their consumers are maintained to avoid cases of user information leakage in addition to the information they share through their social networking accounts such as their Gmail accounts. The issue of privacy and overall security of Google users is a controversial issue that has received worldwide attention as it affects millions of Google account owners worldwide. If adept measures are not taken into account to ensure that the privacy and security of these users are maintained, several casualties might be met.
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Customer information privacy and security for any organization especially multinational corporations such as Google is an essential factor for the wellbeing of the company and users alike. For this reason, user privacy and security is crucial as it helps in maintaining the reputation of a company involved. Various companies have to comply with privacy laws and how they handle customer personal information will significantly impact their standings. Failure to comply with these laws will put their reputations on the line, and they may lose out on potential business opportunities by failing to take customer privacy into account. As with Google, the state censorship laws of China made it easier for hackers to access personal information of Google users and so they had to re-evaluate their business in China to maintain their reputation even if it meant pulling out of the Chinese market (Heineman Jr., 2010) .
Consequently, maintaining user privacy and security by companies is essential as it helps in guaranteeing the satisfaction of customers. Often, customers always worry about how companies handle their personal information. In cases where personal information of users is compromised, customers still tend to be hesitant in using the affected companies’ services again. In this case, companies have to comply with their privacy laws and take necessary precautions of ensuring that customers personal information are kept off the hands of hackers. This will thus leave the company with loyal and happy clients.
Moreover, the issue of user privacy and security in Google dramatically affects all the company's stakeholders that include Google shareholders, creditors, employees and customers (Heineman Jr., 2010) . The collision of China’s state censorship laws and Google global ethical standards is a cause for worry of all the stakeholders. Google shareholders, the most significant stakeholders in the company, may have a lot to lose concerning the issue of user privacy and security. They fear that if the problems are not resolved accordingly, then the company will be put in jeopardy which may result in loss of billions of shillings which will result in lower profit margins given the identified repeated hacking attacks on customer’s personal information that primarily originates from China (Heineman Jr., 2010) . Furthermore, the chief legal officer for Google stated that the hacking incidents had compromised the intellectual property of Google in addition to being a threat to the confidentiality of Gmail account users (Heineman Jr., 2010) . Therefore, the issue had to be resolved at whatever cost as it placed the company in jeopardy.
Additionally, the hacking incidents may make Google consumers rethink about registering with the company in fear of their private information being accessed by unauthorized individuals. Getting access to user personal information can be catastrophic to the company and more importantly the users as this information can be used for unlawful purposes that might personally harm these customers. Furthermore, creditors may be concerned about losing the funds they have pooled into Google's operation if in any case, several users worldwide pull out thus lowering Goggles productivity to a point which they can’t afford to pay their creditors. On the other hand, employees for Google may be concerned for their jobs as workers may be laid off as a result of low productivity and low profits that may come about from withdrawal of Google users from the website.
The best way to resolve the issue was for Google's global ethical standards to allow for no censorship. Thus, prevent jeopardizing user privacy and security by reducing the hacking cases. Having transparent privacy practices will make customers feel that they know about making informed decisions on sharing their data especially for Gmail users (Martin, Borah, & Palmatier, 2018) . This organizational policy that offers control to customers will avail users with the ability to change their preferences on what and how they share their information. Therefore customers will not punish the company in case of data privacy breaches as are more willing to share information and forgive in case of such incidents and will remain loyal after that (Martin, Borah, & Palmatier, 2018) . This is because if Google offers high transparency to its users, then they will feel less violated by data practices, will be more trusting and thus will speak positively of the company. Moreover, trusting and loyal users will help in reducing damages to stock prices during data privacy breaches.
The problem of big data has become the most debated issue worldwide as it poses a threat to consumer privacy and security (Ryoo, 2016) . When more powerful information is collected by more powerful computers, giant sets of data become available not only for legitimate uses but also for abuses. Although big data can revolutionize our lives at a larger capacity, it is a concern for both security and privacy threats as it can be used for malicious purposes (Ryoo, 2016) . The large size of individuals involved in big data security incidents has posed greater stakes high than before. Concerns for big data was seen when the big data breach occurred at eBay in 2014 which saw 145 million people affected as their birth dates, home, email addresses and other vital information were stolen (Ryoo, 2016) .
The issue of customer privacy and security has come to the public attention given the recent data breach on users personal information that occurred on Facebook. It is stated that millions of users identification were used unauthorized by Cambridge Analytica in favor of President Donald Trump in the recent US elections without consent from the users themselves. In light of these recent happenings, the public at large has questioned the credibility of these websites more so social networking sites in keeping their personal information from getting into the wrong hands. This issue is one that if not seriously taken into account can severely impact the global market as a whole. Organizations, therefore, have to strive to put in place measures that will ensure that personal information of their consumers is well protected at any cost.
References
Heineman Jr., W. B. (2010, January 13). The Google Case: When Law and Ethics Collide. Retrieved May 2018, from The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/01/the-google-case-when-law-and-ethics-collide/33438/
Martin, D. K., Borah, A., & Palmatier, W. R. (2018, Feb). Research: A Strong Privacy Policy Can Save Your Company Millions. Retrieved May 2018, from Havard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2018/02/research-a-strong-privacy-policy-can-save-your-company-millions
Ryoo, J. (2016, March 23). Big data security problems threaten consumers’ privacy. Retrieved May 2018, from The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/big-data-security-problems-threaten-consumers-privacy-54798
