Internet and Social Networking Privacy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Internet and Social Networking Privacy - Essay Example I have identified three major trends in approaching this question among the authors of articles and books on Internet privacy. The first one is the view that the Internet privacy does not exist at all. Secondly, some authors acknowledge that privacy on the Internet may be reached through certain measures and that privacy exists/may exist but always to certain extent. Thirdly, there are authors who claim that privacy on the Internet is not something to worry about, since it is normal that it may be violated for the sake of the third party’s interests. More than a hundred years ago privacy was defined as the â€Å"right to be let alone† (Warren & Brandeis 193) While users generally agree that privacy is basically about human dignity as well as protection of private property, in the virtual world, this notion is narrowed. Specifically, information privacy is thought to exist if one is able to control the usage, circulation, as well as release of personal information (Culna n 341). With the rapid growth of the web space and progress of technology, concerns of users’ regarding personal privacy threats are growing, too. While many people sincerely believe that maintaining privacy while on the Internet and especially while visiting social networking sites is their basic right and the basic thing you need to do to protect your privacy is to merely adjust the privacy settings, Steven Rambam and other authors believe that privacy does not exist on the Internet. A private investigator and head of Pallorium Investigative Agency, Rambam gave a few talks at American conferences whose basic idea was â€Å"Privacy is Dead – Get Over It†. In particular, in his talk on privacy death at the 8th www.Toor.Con.org Information Security Conference in San Diego back in 2006, Rambam provided an overview of online databases and resources that could effectively be used with investigative purposes. â€Å"Digital footprints† left practically by every body today help Rambam retrieve as many as up to 500 pages of personal information in just a few hours about a person he is not familiar with at all (Rambam, â€Å"Privacy is Dead – Get Over It†) At the Last HOPE Conference, Rambam described the process of finding necessary information on the Internet through intrusion into privacy, which as the speaker remarkably noted â€Å"is out of the bottle† (Mills, â€Å"The Internet – a Private Eye’s Best Friend†). Specifically, every search through Google, each blog post, and each photo posted online mean further losing the fight over privacy protection for users. This is because â€Å"anything you put on the Internet will be grabbed, indexed, cataloged, and out of your control before you know it† (Mills, â€Å"The Internet – a Private Eye’s Best Friend†). According to Rambam, every kind of information online is digitized, with older information scanned and placed online, after which this mixture gets aggregated into special databases sold to government agencies, marketers, and virtually anyone able to pay for it. Twitter, cell phones, taking photos by iPods, etc are all tools to identify a person’s location; buying preferences and alike information is gathered by marketing databases that are bought by the government. Thanks to using the information provided by

Impact of Product Price and Brand Name on Quality Perception Essay Example for Free

Impact of Product Price and Brand Name on Quality Perception Essay In ordinary usage, price is the quantity of payment or compensation given by one party to another in return for goods or services. In modern economies, prices are generally expressed in units of some form of currency (For commodities, they are expressed as currency per unit weight of the commodity, e.g. Tshs per kilogram.) Although prices could be quoted as quantities of other goods or services this sort of barter exchange is rarely seen. Prices are sometimes quoted in terms of vouchers such as trading stamps and air miles. Brand is the name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one sellers good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.Initially, Branding was adopted to differentiate one persons cattle from anothers by means of a distinctive symbol burned into the animals skin with a hot iron stamp, and was subsequently used in business, marketing and advertising. A modern example of a brand is Coca Cola which belongs to the Coca-Cola Company. A brand is the most valuable fixed asset of a Corporation. In general, the product is defined as a thing produced by labor or effort In marketing, a product is anything that can be offered to a market that might satisfy a want or need. 2.0 PROBLEM ANALYSIS 3.0 OBJECTIVES 3.1 general objectives name on customer’s quality perception of product To assess the effect of price and brand 3.2 specific objectives * To assess the effect of price on quality perception * To assess the effect of brand name on quality perception HYPOTHESES Null hypotheses * There is negative relationship between price and quality perception * There is negative relationship between brand name and quality perception Alternative hypotheses * There is positive relationship between price and quality perception * There is positive relationship between brand name and quality perception LITERATURE REVIEW The consumer quality perception has been a debatable topic for the past so many years around the world; previously many researchers have studied this topic and found exploratory findings in different contexts. The central purpose of the study is to investigate the impact of product price and brand name on consumer’s quality perception of the product. The marketer must inspect the consumer buying behavior by consumer psychological behavior and social concerns (Shabbir et.al 2012). According to Kurtulus et al. (2005) the influence of consumer psychographics on their tendency to purchase retailer brands, that must be valid and reliable so the consumers are more price conscious and prefer and purchase retailer brands. Most of the consumers need convenience and quality products that strongly motivate them to buy the same product more frequently in the future (Ahuja, Gupta, Raman, 2003). Ahmad, Vays, (2011) found that the pre-decision time of consumer purchasing behavior recognized solid link with the desire purchasing Behavior of the consumers. Product price The product price factor is always been an important factor in customer/consumer buying process in every context. They always examine price and brand name information differently when they are making judgments on the dimensions of quality: ease of use, usefulness, performance, durability, and status (Brucks, Zeithaml Naylor, 2000). The marketing managers have to think broader to have a common on two factors such as capability control and strategic dynamic pricing policies (Moe Fader, 2009). The customer must be facilitated with some packages in products. Bie Chiao (2001) found that the marketing managers should highlight the service quality as well as but also price fairness in total consumer satisfaction program. According to Chang Wildt (1998) the price has its significant influence on perceived quality when it is the only information indicated available. According the study of consumer prefers to have a price and quality rather than technical aspects in durable goods (Chui et al. 2006). Brand name Another benefit of branding , from the customer view point,is its ability to increase purchase confidence and enhance customer loyality (Aaker,1991 ; chaudhuri amp; holbrook ,2001).Brands work by facilitating the the customers buying decesions process.(Doyle,1990).In a competitive market customer face hundred of products and messages competing for attention.the buying decisions are reliant on their past experience and perception about a product and his habitual buying process is associated with brand loyalty

A Soldiers Home :: essays papers

A Soldiers Home The willingness to risk failure-as difficult as that can be-often leads us to remarkable discoveries about ourselves and our world. But on the other hand, not taking risks can save us from amounts of devastation and heartache. I think that was a major principle for Krebs in the short story, "Soldiers Home." After going to hell and back, it's almost inevitable that anyone under the circumstances would be completely overwhelmed by all that Krebs had experienced and risked. He risked his life, and was then thrown back into a society that he had been absent from for years, and finds that its all the exact way that he had left it, except he says, "Nothing was changed in the town except that the young girls had grown up." In Krebs case, after returning from war, he had become a completely different person. Distant, quiet and depressed. He didn't want to risk any complications. He didn't want to risk any part of himself ever again. He didn't want to work for what he wanted, he had worked hard enough and had been through a lifetime of disaster. All he wanted was to sit back and just live. Not enjoy life, not experience new and better things, he just wanted to live without any complications and without taking any risks. He mentions that he would like to have a girl, or more so wouldn't mind. But he doesn't want to work to get her, or do anything drastic to get her attention. It would just all be to complicated. He wants no commitment, no strings attached. "He did not want any consequences. He did not want any consequences ever again. He wanted to live without consequences. Besides, he did not really need a girl. The army had taught him that." For Krebs, asking out a girl would be a risk and lead to complications whether good or bad. And taking that risk just wasn't worth anything. Krebs was dead inside. Not intentionally, but subconsciously. He knew not of what he was doing.

Demand and Supply of Housing in Australia

Economic Policy Problem: Demand and Supply The demand and supply of Housing and the Housing affordability in Australia I. Introduction Like all other economies The Australian economy has been affected by the global financial crisis which is now a global economic crisis due the collapse of Lehman Brothers and other financial institutions in US. The consequences of the global economic crisis has been severe and as a result of this the world is in Recession therefore many economies has pushed the budget into a deficit launching economic package trying to boost their economies.Because the housing market and the housing industry is one of the most important sector of the economy this report aim to analyse how the global financial crisis has affected the demand and supply of housing in Australia also what are the condition of housing affordability and how the Government through the stimulus package tend to intervene the economy.After this report we will be able to understand the movement a nd the reason for a movement into the demand and supply curve for housing in Australia you will be able also to identify if the Government economic policy is going for the correct pathway or if this temporary measure will not bring certainty and confident to the economy. It is very clear that at least the Rudd’s Government is addressing the problem anticipating future scenarios and acting to correct this scenarios exploiting and taking advantage of the relative good shape of the Australian economy in this moment in comparison with another countries.II. Australian Economy Like all other economies the Australian economy was very much affected by the global economic crisis and the recession around the world therefore the financial institutions started to feel the pressure and the stress of the situation but the Australian Government put in place measures to guarantee the debts of banks. Apart of that the Australian economy was affected by the collapse of commodity prices this br ought real losses of income to the economy which put to business in a position to review their investment plan in the future.At the same time households have become more cautious about expenditure due the increase of the unemployment rates and they start to increasing savings. Because the panic caused and the lack of consuming the RBA responded lowering of interest rates reducing from 7 ? per cent to 3 ? per cent, this reduction have fully passed to the borrowers therefore interest rates on housing loans have fallen as well as interest in consumer and business loan, this rate are at historically low levels.This has produced an increase in loan demand; other factor that increased the demand of loans apart of the lowest interest rate around 5 ? per cent is the program first home owner grant which has attracted new buyers into the market. On top of that the stimulus package is an initiative of the government to support spending but this measure cost that last financial year there was f iscal surplus of 1 ? per cent of the GPD even so Australia will remain as one of the better performing economies around the world.One of the reason of the reduction in wealth over the past year is that people which income have grown over the year overestimated the returns of the share market, people did not set up realistic expectations about their financial goals and now they have to increase the proportion of income working additional year or many of them returning to the workforce to compensated the losses of the share market due the global financial crisis, people did not took in count that share market produce negative returns every few years therefore they should have included this into the returns expectations.Although the large fall in wealth the households sector still is in a relative good position because people is maintaining a good balance between assets and liability and even when the hose market was subdued during 2008 and the prices has fallen by 3 per cent, the Aust ralian overall the housing market has held up pretty well in comparison with another countries like US or UK where price has fallen by 20 per cent. An update on the economy and financial Developments (Battellino, 2009) III. Supply and DemandThe relatively high level of housing price in Australia is a reflection of a collective decisions of households, this is not the result of a external forces they are at their income, preferences, access to finance have been willing to pay those prices. But this is not the only reason the supply – side factors also influenced in the fact of high price like the ability to built new housing on the city fringe, factor affecting the ability to increase supply closer to the city, transport infrastructure and community affect the feasibility and desirability of living in a different place.One of the good indicators of some of the supply issue is the cost of raw land. Prices still are high on the edges of Sydney but lowest on Melbourne and Adelaid e therefore will very important to see if it is possible to reduce these prices or at least try to keep a lid on increase over the years because the housing affordability over the medium term will be the result of the ability to expand the supply of housing.Home building has recently been at low levels and this is because in a showing or uncertainty situation economy builder does not want to take higher risk than usual and also recent weakness in building approvals are affecting the supply curve and when there is a lack of supply and increase in demand the prices will go upwards. Conditions and Prospects in the Housing Sector (Richards, 2009)Looking beyond that the fall in interest rate and improvements in housing affordability should contribute to growth this has not happened but economist are expecting that occurred during this year and gradually boost home-building. Another factor that can contribute the building approval for building activities and therefore increase the supply of housing is the increase of number of first – home buyer demand there has been an important increase in loans approval in recent months.Is also very important understand that for many economist in this moment there is undersupply in the housing market even though we do not know exactly how large the undersupply it is but this should support also home-building. According with the current population rates, the decline in average household and level of demand for second house had been maintained most calculation now put â€Å"underlying demand† around 180. 000 to 200. 000 per year that means we need to increase the number of new house built than has actually occurred.However, we can ignore the impact of prices on the demand for housing remember over the years the cost of housing has grown faster than incomes and the cost of goods and services as a consequence of that the demand for housing will be affected by the higher cost of housing therefore we can expect that the d emand decline because many young adult will choose to live with their parents for longer, many other would prefer extra flatmate rather than having a bedroom vacant and another owner of holidays homes very likely to sell them so perhaps this is the reason that we have built fewer homes in recent years than might have been expected.But the undersupply of housing is a story of never ending because there is an Intelligent Housing Research Group â€Å"Hometrack† stated that the calculation of the RBA are based in accurate data according with them Australia may already have an excess of housing according with their estimation there are at least 10 millions dwellings in Australia compared with the 8. 3 millions of ABS data showing occupied dwellings of 8. millions, the extra two millions are housing awaiting to be sale or development, second homes and abandoned homes. Therefore they say that the ABS Method for calculation the ratio of people per dwelling per dwelling is based on AB S census data which is based upon occupied dwelling however Hometrack analysis is based on postal address indicates that Australia’s current level of housing relative to its population is in line with other Anglo economies.Following this looking at the context of population growth Australia total building approvals have running about the demand, for that reason the concern is that business and government decision in regards of housing market are being made based on demand assumptions that vary from the actual behaviour of the housing market. But how can we know who is telling the true well according with statistics during 1985-2009 an average of 1 residential dwelling was built per 1. 75 new Australian and only in the last 3 months has the rate of new building fallen behind population growth.This is in excess of the current ABS ratio of 2. 55 person per occupied therefore far from having and undersupply of housing Australia may well have substantial oversupply, it’s ju st that no-one is living in many of them. Is very likely cause of this large stock of unoccupied homes is Australia system of negative gearing. Most investor prefer build houses but avoid the renting-damage property having to manage tenant therefore they built it for capital gains because is better to keep the hose out of the rental market and claim the loss against tax.In order to defend the dominant view that Australian house price are justified by supply and demand, Anthony Richards (Economist) observed that the relative high level of housing price in Australia is a reflection of demand and the collective decision of households therefore housing price have not been set by external forces they are at this level because buyers in general have been willing to pay the prices. This is a fairly typical piece of neoclassical economic thinking â€Å"Prices reflect the interaction of supply and demand and are therefore justified†.Economist who apply a standard â€Å"Supply and dem and† mindset to analysing the property market seem to consider that demand can shift â€Å"Left and right† as the number of buyers falls and rises with time; but they seem to ignore that the demand curve can shift up and down as well. Is response to the willingness of lenders to increase or decrease their loan to valuation ratios and if there is a substantial fall in LVR to new buyers could reduce the price that would be buyers can offer even in shortage of properties.Price S D3 D2 D1 Quantity of Supply, Demand Increase of demand due to: †¢ Population Growth †¢ Low interest Rates †¢ Booming economy with rising wages †¢ Governments Policies like Cuts to capital gains taxes Lies, damned lies, and Housing statistics (Keen, 2009) Bentick, Teresita, (2003) Microeconomics Study guide (4th Ed). Australia: Pearson Educations Australia. Frank, Robert, Bernanke Ben, (2001) Principles of Microeconomics (1st Ed).New York, USA: McGraw Hill Higher Education IV. Ho using Affordability. Housing affordability can be divided in two: people need where to live whether they buy or rent therefore we need to include rents as well as mortgage to measure housing affordability, the second part is people who are looking to get into the housing market and people who already are already there. Housing affordability is consider as spending up to 30% a household’s income on mortgage repayments or rent.In the past two decades the prices of the housing has risen matched by a decrease in housing affordability this mean that a household now need 34. 8% of their income to meet an average loan repayment. According with a report released entitled â€Å"Anatomy of Australian Mortgage Stress† released by fujitsu consulting in April found that the main cause of mortgage stress is the interest rate rises and rents have risen slower than mortgage repayments pushing people out the house market and into the rental market, this mean that rents too are on the r ise.According with report released by The Real State Institute of Australia REIA on April 22th 2009 â€Å"An opportune time for renters to buy† the ABS released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) showing that housing components increased 0,9% for the quarter bringing the annual increase to 5. 5%. The majority of this increase in the housing components was driven by rents which increased by 1. 7% over the quarter and 8. 4% over the year, this ncrease in rents reflects record low vacancy rates and the unavailability of rental properties in all capital cities. Building approvals and housing finance for investment purposes continue decrease during the March quarter 2009 and is very likely to put further upwards pressure on rents. Australia will need to build significantly more house than has occurred recently to meet rental demand. Housing affordability has improved significantly since the reserve bank began cutting interest rates in September 2008.With the availability of the first home owners boost (FHOB), lower interest rate, greater affordability and vacancy rates remaining in a low record now would be an opportune time for these in the rental market to consider the purchase of their own home. Real Estate institute of Australia (2009, April 22). Ann opportune time for renters to buy. Retrieved April 28, 2009, from http://www. reia. com. au/media/documents/REIA_MediaRelease_AnOpportuneTimeforRenterstoBuy. pdf Housing costs and Affordability in Australia (Thrift, 2008) ConclusionIs very clear that the housing sector in Australia is showing signs of improvements due the increase in households cash flows as a result of the of the important role of the Government and the RBA in the downturn of the economy decreasing the interest rates and providing policies that improve housing affordability for people to repay the loans but in order to tackle this important problem is very important that the government does not exclude anyone from the spectrum like young people also is very important that the Reserve Bank of Australia as a Central bank play an important role n this matter acting more like an honest broker developing real strong statistic about the housing market that helps in a future time to provide valuable resources, accurate data and support important decisions about the supply and demand of housing market instead of take part of this problem assuming neoclassical position taking in consideration on side of the problem and ignoring the other.REFERENCE LIST ? Bentick, T. (2003). Microeconomics Study Guide. Pearson education Australia, Australia: Pearson Education Australia Frank, R. , Bernanke B. (2001) Principles of microeconomics. Mc graw Hill, New York: Gary Burke ? Thrift Rhea, (2008) Housing and Affordability in Australia . Retrieved April 27, 2009, from http://www. rba. gov. au/EconomicsCompetition/2008/Pdf/2008_first_year. pdf ? Real Estate institute of Australia, (2009, April 22). Ann opportune time for renters to buy. Retrieve d April 28, 2009, from http://www. reia. com. au/media/documents/REIA_MediaRelease_AnOpportuneTimeforRenterstoBuy. pdf ? Battellino, Ric. 2009, March 31). An Update on the Economy and Financial Developments. Retrieved April 27, 2009, from http://www. rba. gov. au/Speeches/2009/sp_dg_310309. html ? Richards, A. (2009, March 26). Conditions and Prospects in the Housing Sector. Retrieved April 27, 2009, from http://www. rba. gov. au/Speeches/2009/sp_dg_310309. html ? Keen, S. (2009, April 08). Lies, damned lies, and housing statistics. Retrieved April 27, 2009, from http://www. businessspectator. com. au/bs. nsf/Article/Lies-damned-lies-and-housi

Managing Ethically Essay

Today’s business world often requires that employees work longer hours and travel extensively. This forces many to sacrifice family time and other personal responsibilities for their careers. In a one to two page paper, answer the following: What are the ethical implications of requiring that employees dedicate long hours and extensive travel time to their careers? What obligations, if any, does a manager or employer have to enable employees to create a balanced professional and private life? Support your answers with examples. Understanding, that ethics is about fairness and equity. Businesses are cutting labor, but not cutting the amount of work that has to be done. I work for a very large company, and three years ago there was a large reorganization. The team I was on went from 22 people down to 12, but the workload did not drop. We were required to pick up the extra work. There was no choice, the work had to be done, and someone had to do it. Managers do not have any obligations to their employees to provide balance for them, but it creates a bad working environment. Employees that are not happy at their jobs are not as productive. It can also bring down morale for the entire team. There are things that can be done to help eliminate some of the ethical issues that could arise. There are plenty of workaholics out there that want to work longer hours and travel extensively, find out who wants to do it, and who does not. This is not a guarantee, but could stop a problem before there is one.