Progressive Insurance's networked Snapshot device is plugged into a vehicle. It provides Progressive with a steady stream of information about the vehicle's locations, braking patterns and acceleration rates, driving speed, amount of driving, the time of the day the driving takes place, and a host of other parameters. Progressive then personalizes car insurance rates based on some of the collected information. Monitoring consumer driving habits can result in reduced rates for some consumers. However, Snapshot also raises some questions of privacy, equity, and ethics within and across customer groups. See www.forbes.com/ advisor/car-insurance/usage-based-insurance/.

Is it ethical for marketers to gather and use data from people’s devices to improve the value proposition to consumers? Explain.