First of all John Smith should not sell the names to the car company. Secondly, the statement of ethics for the AMA to me says the it is completely unethical to sell the names of the people to the car company. The people who agreed to take the survey done by John Smith are trusting Smith with their information and that they won't let it get to places that the people would not like their information to go. They are trusting Smith with their information the same way Smith is trusting that the person being surveyed will give their honest answer and not lie.
I think that the whole statement relates to John Smiths dilemma; my reasoning behind this: their three main principles that the AMA goes by, which is, "Do no harm, Foster trust in the marketing system, and embrace ethical values." Two of the three principles effect John Smith directly, these are "Foster Trust in the Marketing System and Embrace Ethical Values". The reason that these two are effected is because the people being surveyed are trusting John Smith with their information so if they turn around and sell the names to the car company then Smith would not be Fostering Trust in the Marketing system. Embrace Ethical Values is also being disrupted because it is completely unethical to sell someones information to another company without the person knowing, which is exactly what John Smith is debating on doing. Do you think that these types of situations happen a lot in the marketing world? If it is so unethical to sell names to another company, why does everyone who has a mailbox receive flyers an advertisements? Do you think the companies who send out flyers to mailboxes get your information in a similar way?
