The ethics of negative options: the case of US West Communications

Many corporations that engage in direct marketing have been more sensitized to the concept of ethics in marketing than in years past. The marketing manager must be capable of formulating as well as implementing policy that calls not only for economic reasoning but also for ethical awareness. This case study examines the marketing strategies of a major US telecommunications corporation that employed the use of a negative option approach in its attempt to sign up the maximum number of telephone subscribers to a new service when it was first offered in 1982. As it will be shown in this case study, their marketing efforts turned out to be poorly executed and ethically questionable.