The online video streaming service of a Canadian cable company offers recommendations to viewers based on their past viewing choices. They monitor 1.7 million customers’ viewing habits by keeping track of four variables about each video viewed: (i) viewer’s age; (ii) hour when a video was viewed according to the 24-hour clock; (iii) genre of video (action, sports, drama, romance, other); and (iv) viewing device (phone, computer, TV). The vice president of Marketing instructs the Statistics Department to calculate correlation coefficients between pairs of these four variables. “We need to understand how these things are related,” she says.

a) What ethical issue does this raise according to the ethical guidelines in Appendix C?

b) What correlation coefficient(s) could the Statistics Department calculate?

c) How could this be done in a way that takes the other variables into account?