The Ethics of Retail Anthropology

Excerpts from the Paper

The Ethics of Retail Anthropology
Paco Underhill has built an empire upon surveillance. As CEO of Envirosell, Paco’s company specializes in compiling tailor made reports to major retailers throughout the country to help improve their sales numbers. But Envirosell is not your typical marketing and research consultant. Their specialty is much more nefarious and unethical than most would believe. Underhill’s mentor while he was in college was the great urban anthropologist, William Whyte. Whyte became famous for taking time lapse photographs of public parks and other public spaces, and using the data collected from the surveillance to determine the most efficient methods of laying out parks, recreational areas, sidewalks, and other urban...

.....m these studies, which comes at the cost of stripping personal privacy and consumer advocacy, it not worthwhile. Many of the conclusions Underhill comes to are common sense anyway, like the biggest factor in consumer satisfaction is not waiting too long in line (Gladwell 1996). It seems that the benefits of these studies do not outweigh the huge cost it has on the consumer and their rights. This is another major reason that Paco Underhill’s surveillance methods are foolish and misguided.
Bibliography
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