Social Media and the Privacy-Hostile Marketplace Liam Pomfret 11 UQ Business School, The University of Queensland Josephine Previte 12 UQ Business School, The University of Queensland The direct marketing edifice is built on the concept of consumer in- formation, gathered either internally or externally and freely avail- able in the marketplace. In the face of no clear, concise policy, it seems to us that it is incumbent on academic and industry lead- ers in direct marketing to take a proactive stance on the general topic of privacy. (Schultz, 1988, p. 855) The collection and use of consumer information has become ubiquitous in the modern digitally connected marketplace, and consumer privacy is one of the most pressing challenges facing the marketing discipline today. Pri- vacy is a complex wicked problem with broad societal implications that re- quire participation from multiple stakeholders to find social change solutions that are sustainable. Specifically, this paper explores industry self-regulation on consumer privacy in social media through the lens of critical social mar- keting. Critical social marketing engages in the deconstruction of commer- cial marketing activities, in order to build evidence to inform upstream and downstream social marketing interventions (Gordon, 2011). More recently, other social marketers have extended the purview of critical social marketing contending that issues of control, power and responsibility of all actors, not ‘just’ commercial entities, need to be considered when analysing the impact of actions and consequences within marketing systems (Gurrieri, Previte, and 11 l.pomfret@business.uq.edu.au 12 j.previte@business.uq.edu.au 405