INTERNET TECHNOLOGY, MARKETING, AND SECURITY

JOHN G. BESSLER

PROFESSOR: DR. NIKHIL NAYAK

CONTEMPORARY BUSINESS – BUS 508

February 26, 2012

1.      Describe and evaluate a major corporation’s Website in these four areas: (1) product information, (2) corporation’s contact information, (3) customization of products for customers, and (4) customer information at purchase.

A.     Product information – The website is easy to read in this case it is Books and today it is highlighting the Best Books of 2011. Under the title Books is the 2012 Oscars: the books that inspired the nominees.

B.     Corporation’s contact information – On the upper right side is My Account and Help.

C.     Customization of products for customers – The Website is personalized for me with my name John G. Bessler at the top and JOHN’S Amazon.com.

D.     Customer information at purchase – In the upper right hand corner is an icon for a shopping cart that when clicked on takes you to a secure page that checks you out with your credit/debit card and billing/shipping address.

2.      Describe and evaluate (3) of the corporation’s Internet marketing strategies and the competitive advantages its Website provides.

Amazon.com was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 and went online in 1995 which Bezos labeled “Earth’s Biggest Bookstore.” Soon Amazon.com expanded into other media including DVDs, VHS, CDs, MP3s and eventually toys, electronics, furniture and apparel.

Amazon.com is one of the most recognized brand names in the world with over 50% of its sales are from overseas customers.

Amazon.com survived the dot-com bust in 2000 and now is a rival to Best Buy, Wal-Mart and Target.

Pay Per Click advertising done thru its Product Ads subsidiary allows any web merchant to purchase PPC ads on Amazon.com’s website. Despite its Product Ads subsidiary  Amazon.com purchases PPC advertisements on Google to direct people to its websites.

Amazon.com does not use big banners, loud colors or other splashy displays.

Amazon.com uses their Associates program, sponsored search, portal advertising, email marketing campaigns and follows up on customer satisfaction,

I shop Amazon.com frequently for both books and DVDs and every time after I make a purchase Amazon.com sends me an email to inform me when the purchase I have made has been shipped. About a couple of weeks after the purchase Amazon.com sends me an email with a link to its website to evaluate the product I purchased and the service. This is an example of how Amazon.com solicits customer feedback to fine tune their marketing strategies. This is part of Amazon.com’s marketing strategy to engage their customer base and improve marketing performance.

Amazon.com is a very data driven company and uses metrics to measure different customer’s tastes and buying behavior. I get emails from Amazon.com suggesting purchases based on my purchasing behavior. Since I purchase a lot of science fiction novels I will receive an email from Amazon.com announcing science fiction titles that they have currently for sale. When I have purchased DVD movies dealing with business finance or marketing themes such as The Boiler Room, Pirates of Silicon Valley, Wall Street, etc. I will receive an email suggesting DVD purchases such as Wall Street 2, Barbarians at the Gate, Glengarry Glen Ross and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.

The above demonstrates Amazon.com’s customer centric marketing which has lead greatly to the company’s enormous success.

3.      Analyze and evaluate the corporation’s privacy / security policy and the corporation’s response to the security breach.

Amazon.com Privacy Notice states clearly the company’s position on privacy under these headings:

·        What Personal Information Does Amazon.com Gather?

A.     Information You Give Us

B.     Automatic Information – Cookies

C.     E-mail Communication

D.     Information from Other Sources

·        Does Amazon.com Share the Information It Receives?

A.     Affiliated Businesses We Do Not Control

B.     Third-Party Service Providers

C.     Promotional Offers

D.     Business Transfers

E.      Protection of Amazon.com and Others

F.      With Your Consent

·        How Secure is Information About Me?

Amazon uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software which encrypts information about your input.

·        What About Third-Party Advertisers and Links to Other Websites?

Amazon does not provide any personally identifiable customer information to these advertisers or third party websites.

·        Which Information Can I Access?

Amazon.com gives you a wide range of information about your account for the limited purpose of viewing.

A hacker used Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud or EC2 to attack Sony’s online entertainment systems in 2011 which compromised more than 100 million customer accounts, the largest data breach in the US since the Heartland Payments breach in 2009.

Amazon has stressed that it is fully investigating the means to prevent it happening again although computer security experts say that with Cloud computing there isn’t much that can be done.

4.      Recommend and provide rationale for two (2) methods and/or tools to ensure greater security for customers.

The Amazon Web Services (AWS) is implementing Identity and Access Management (IAM) which allows you to implement unique credentials for every User within a AWS account.

AWS has created a Pretty Good Privacy Key for especially sensitive information.

These two security measures should strengthen the security for the company and its users.

PlayStation security breach shows Amazon’s Cloud Appeal for hackers