The International Social Contract is based on Rawls’s Law of Peoples (1999) and requires minimalist democracies 7 to refrain from intervening in each other’s affairs and to assist each other when in need. Using the records responsibly and maintaining their confidentiality is a prime duty of the government agencies. Well, we're looking for good writers who want to spread the word. Manning is effectively a political prisoner. And Bradley Manning, Wikileaks’s US informer, is still imprisoned in very inhumane conditions with no hope of a hearing—a completely unconstitutional action. The Great Firewall of China (the colloquial name of the project officially known as the Golden Shield) blocks content which might be threatening to the Chinese government, including sites such as Wikipedia and BBC News, and topics such as freedom of speech, democracy, Tiananmen Square, and the Dalai Lama (Elgin 2006). So the notion of the greatest good for the greatest number can only serve as a metaphor. The original intent of copyright has clearly been distorted in recent years as corporations holding copyrights use their influence in Congress to extend the copyright period almost indefinitely. In this connection, the important case of Wikileaks will be discussed later. (Bridis 2004). Yet it cannot be correct to hold the Internet responsible for every bad consequence of every Internet application. The basis of ethics as cooperative principles is the realization that rules limiting individual self-interest can often produce greater cooperative benefits. Kant, Immanuel. Failure to appreciate the distinction between ethical principles that insure cooperative benefits and moral principles that reflect mainly arbitrary religious or cultural beliefs may be responsible for the attractiveness of relativism, the belief that ethical beliefs are true only for specific groups. Would you like to write for us? Music companies used the courts to shut down a free music-sharing service in 2001. There is an attempt in Congress to change the situation. Google can now claim with more consistency that it has to comply with the principles of the Global Network Initiative. How could it possibly be right to do an action which produces less good when you could have done better? This theory is called rule utilitarianism. At the level of a society, rule utilitarianism is widely used as a theory of justice, especially by economists dealing with public policy. For example, a link between a lawyer and a judge on sites like Facebook or LinkedIn could indicate an influence of the lawyer on the judge. For example, an advertiser monitoring the online habits of web users to target potential customers is not illegal. Kenneth Arrow won the Nobel Prize in 1972 by proving in his “general possibility theorem” that a consistent and minimally just amalgamation of individual preferences is impossible. This tax, the same amount as sales tax, is collected along with the state income tax. Problems with China are well-documented, but other countries are still far from Greatest Equal Liberty. Ethical Issues Chapter 4 Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems • Identify the ethical, social, and political issues that are raised by information systems. Since the opposite of enhancing free expression actually seems to be the result, there is no such absolute ownership right. If not, isn’t this an unfair advantage for e-businesses? With outsourced manufacturing, the choice would be the country where operations take place. 17 The case of Wikileaks, discussed below, is an important exception. Internet privacy is the control you have over what information about yourself or your online activities, you wish to disclose. Also, the ACM Code of Ethics states it will “be fair and take action not to discriminate” (ACM council, 2012). In countries which have more respect for human rights such as most developed countries, requests to shut down sites are rarely honored, except for obscenity and commercial reasons. “Judge Backtracks: WikiLeaks Resumes U.S. Operations.” February 29. ✦ Access to or disclosure of non-personally identifiable information of the users is acceptable. It is recommended that websites using third-party cookies disclose the same to the users through their privacy policy. For how could it possibly be wrong to do the action that produces the greatest good? But with the Internet, the various parts of a sales transaction can easily be scattered across not only many states but many countries. The result was an attempt by Sweden to arrest the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, on apparently trumped-up sex charges. These cookies do not store any personal information. Their creation and implementation of the Global Network Initiative is a major step in fulfilling this duty. It allows easy transactions and exchange of information, but blurs the very idea of privacy. From the point of view of justice, the assumption that increased Internet skills will improve a person’s ability to reap the fruits of the economy, while reasonable, needs to be confirmed by more research. 2005. By contrast, morality has a large arbitrary element because of its basis in beliefs that are explicitly not shared by all, such as religious beliefs. So it seems very wrongheaded to extend traditional sales tax collection to e-businesses. So, said Yang, “We operate within these environments to the extent that the law has any clarity” (Bartz and Dobbyn 2008). Singer, Peter. Global or transnational principles apply to concerns which cannot be handled by dividing them up between societies. A corporation is a legal entity capable of acting in some respects as an individual, mainly in terms of property rights, legal liability, and political rights. The World Wide Web was developed by Swiss physicist Tim Berners-Lee as a method of exchanging scientific information including both text and graphics. In the case of the music industry, they didn’t, and merely worked through the courts to extend their (monopoly) property rights. It rather intends to achieve controlled disclosure of critical information. This gives rise to ethical issues surrounding the protection of critical information from unauthorized access. Any jurisdiction (like China or the United States) that found it important to restrict human rights such as freedom of speech would probably not be willing to enter into an international treaty not to restrict speech or other rights. the Internet. 2007. So how can this principle be enforced over the various national jurisdictions? Most utilitarians and some social- contract theorists grant no ethical legitimacy to any group of people other than all of humanity. But technological determinism is a very naïve view as well as a dangerous one. 2001. Not only is there no central computer, there is nothing that is not maintained either by commercial ISPs charging for services, or companies whose contribution to the Internet is a business expense, or nonprofits like universities which are funded in other ways. But perhaps it would be better for them to expend their resources on researching ways to profitability in a world including relatively free digital copying, than on trying to stamp it out. From the point of view of justice, the tax should be collected at the point where it supports the infrastructure needed for commercial transactions between seller and customer. Rawls’s theory has had wide influence and is used extensively by lawyers, jurists, and politicians. Federal websites need to maintain high standards of privacy considering that they store such large amounts of critical information. Start studying Ethical Issues on the Internet. Even with this clarification, it is open to question whether freedom of speech is more valuable than economic gain. I believe that these cases show that, with respect to Internet access, our intuitive judgments about global justice are in accord with the Global Economy Greatest-Equal-Freedom Principle. In Section 1 , we provide an overview of the technology, indicating both current and future applications. Internet ethical issues involve principles at all three levels: individual, social, and global. Wong, May. Their Internet outlets therefore lack a physical presence and are not required to collect sales taxes. But is it ethical to track you without your consent? These cases illustrate the consequence that professional Internet companies like Google and Yahoo have a duty to uphold the Global Economy Greatest-Equal-Freedom Principle. The improvement of systems security to prevent criminal hacker has become an important concern to society. ✦ Some users prefer anonymity when using the Internet. The company also took other action against the offending content, and these actions apparently satisfied Brazilian authorities (Associated Press 2008). New forms of E-Commerce that enables new business practices have many advantages but also bring numerous risks. (Todorov 2001). ✦ Flash cookies are not easily blocked. Digital copying helps greatly in disseminating intellectual property and in this respect furthers intellectual progress. “We have asked the United States government to use its leverage— through trade relationships, bilateral and multilateral forums, and other diplomatic means—to create a global environment where Internet freedom is a priority and where people are no longer imprisoned for expressing their views online,” said Michael Samway, Yahoo’s vice president and general counsel (Sarkar 2008). I have already discussed the role of the Internet in helping to fulfill Rawls’s Greatest Equal Liberty Principle, his first principle of justice. But in some countries, there are still internal problems of justice. Of course, downloading music or movies and trying not to get caught has nothing to do with civil disobedience. There are really two distinct views possible within technological determinism. In the year before August 2004, the recording industry sued just under 4,000 individuals for downloading copyrighted music. The 20th century philosopher John Rawls expanded a suggestion by Kant on how to make this into a comprehensive theory of justice (Kant 1785, 74; Rawls 1999a). Some plausible candidates for standards for individual ethical behavior are these: Intuitionism is actually not a standard. of Commerce 2000). Retrieved April 3 from news.yahoo.com. There would be some justice in having a separate national (or even international) tax to help support Internet infrastructure. “MSFT Def 14A.” Retrieved August 27, 2011 from www.wikinvest.com/stock/Microsoft_(MSFT)/Internet Censorship. Indeed, it came as a shock to me to discover that in the United States, the right of freedom of speech does not apply on the Internet (Jesdanun 2008). As I observed before, there is no way that repressive regimes which currently believe they have the right to suppress speech and violate privacy will agree to international treaties—let alone United States laws—banning such behavior. Surveys reveal that most users never read the policies or terms before accepting them, thus landing themselves into trouble. The argument later prevailed that shutting down an entire website constituted illegal “prior restraint” in United States Law, and that even removing the documents was unconstitutional (Kravets, 2008). Advertisers use them to track your visits to different domains, thus tracking your web preferences in general. Similarly, the Global Difference Principle applies only to participants in the global economy and its application must respect domestic justice (Schultz 2010). Rather, attempts should be made to change the law. 2008. ✦ While carrying out banking transactions online, you share details about your finances with the bank. ✦ The other important ethical issue in Internet privacy is whether the websites that gather personally identifiable information from the users should store or share it. Our site includes quite a bit of content, so if you're having an issue finding what you're looking for, go on ahead and use that search feature there! 4.1 Understanding Ethical and Social Issues Related to Systems Ethics in MIS seek to protect and safeguard individuals and society by using information systems responsibly. First various important issues in the field of IT in the social and ethical areas are discussed. Nokia Siemens has also been accused of supplying equipment to Iran to be used for censorship (Risen 2010). Afterword 1999. 2006. Retrieved December 2 from news.bbc.co.uk. They are the ethical principles I will employ at this level. The behavior of record and movie companies seems clearly legal but unethical. Recently Match.com settled a lawsuit by agreeing to screen all members. But one question is whether a government will find compliance with an intercompany agreement as compelling a reason for disobeying its laws as compliance with United States law. The shareholder’s vote against a ban on censorship is another ethical matter. Again, the fact that this is an Internet company makes the question a lot harder to answer. 2007. Is it ethically correct to expose people’s views to the world? The original copyright period of 14 years is now 70 years for individuals and 95 years from publication and 120 years from creation for corporations! Be it posting your life’s events on social networking websites or sharing personal details via emails; be it while banking online or accepting lucrative offers on the Internet; it’s you, who agrees to share personal information, thus inviting an invasion of privacy. ✦ The effort to ensure Internet privacy should start at the user’s end. Smart Cities and The Internet of Things. They use this to detect spam and malware, and also for tailored advertising. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. For some, it means anonymity, and for others, it implies security of personally identifiable information. Associated Press, July 6. ✦ This tracking can potentially breach your privacy on the Internet. These issues affect both the participants within the system and also those outside the information system. • Identify the principles for conduct that can be used to guide ethical decisions. BBC News. Retrieved June 19, 2004 from  www.ntia.gov/ntiahome/fftn00/confer. “No-go for TiVo? If all the information accessed or shared over the Internet by a user is gathered from multiple sources (like his social networking profile, browsing habits, money transactions, etc.) Studios Contest Mobility Plans.” San Fernando Valley Daily News. Otherwise, the Chinese would always win because of their much greater numbers. His political-prisoner status was approved by United States President, Barack Obama. These developments will somewhat improve the situation for transnational actors. Network administrators in companies need to monitor traffic to their server, which includes tracking the Internet use by employees. But is this ethical? How does the use of the Internet by the least-advantaged affect their life prospects? A minimalist democracy is one that has been ruling for a long time with the apparent acquiescence of its people, without severe restrictions on civil liberties, and without using repression to maintain its power. Cyber-crime refers to the use of information technology to commit crimes. This field cannot be empty, Please enter your comment. ✦ A report, “Keeping Internet Users in the Know or in the Dark,” by Canadian online privacy groups, IXmaps and The New Transparency project, rates Internet service providers on privacy and expresses the need for more transparency between ISPs and users regarding where and how their private data is stored and used, and under what conditions it is disclosed to third parties. These freedoms are important constituents of what are called human rights: privacy, freedom of speech, and freedom of association are enhanced by the ability to communicate freely with others at any location with a computer or such devices as smartphones having similar functionality. There is no requirement of justice, and indeed it would be a misuse of government power to use government redistributive power to make traditional businesses competitive. This Techspirited article talks about the ethical issues of Internet privacy. 4. ✦ There are many other organizations that store personal details and other critical information of their users. Yahoo therefore has the right to ignore the shareholder vote. Ethical and Social Issues of the Internet Governance Regulations: 10.4018/978-1-60960-057-0.ch038: In this paper we debate some fundamental normative issues of the Internet governance. 2008. Evercookies make multiple copies of themselves on your computer and are stored in different types of storage mechanisms. Theoretically corporations are created to serve the public benefit, and their trans-individual status allows them to function more efficiently, without constant shifting of property rights and responsibilities. For example, your ISP is in a position to track even the content of your emails. For example, making an agreement you have no intention of keeping could not be willed to be universal law because then no one would make or accept agreements. One benefit is that people in small towns and rural locations suddenly have the same availability of sexual partners as those in densely populated big cities. At the very least, Google should have supplied the information under protest. The Fragility of Goodness. ... stir in social awareness regarding Internet-related legal void. 2010. Now 78.6% (Internet World Stats, 2012). The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman seems to believe this—he calls himself a “technological determinist” (Friedman 2005: 374). It provides information, which is not only helpful to children in their studies, but also to gather general knowledge. But is this ethical? It’s only unethical. 2004. Claims that “freedom” is being defended become completely empty. from University of Zabol to identify the harm and ethical and social issues in the field of information technology and to classify the immoral practices that students are doing in this field. Not letting this information fall in the wrong hands requires strict security measures and a strong ethic. Get in touch with us and we'll talk... Privacy is the state of being secluded from the view of others. One is that if we consider actions in isolation from one another, it is easy for a utilitarian to break promises or fail to fulfill contracts when more good would be produced in that case. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. However, the Napster example still supports a version of application determinism. The state of California currently has what they call a “use tax” on Internet transactions. Goodman, Dean. Blender magazine suggests that the industry should have instead figured out how to make money from downloading. Sales tax in the United States is collected by states, and each state sets its own percentage and its own list of what is taxable and what is not. The two issues are connected, because the United States government, at least since 9/11, has decided that considerations of “national security” trump human rights concerns such as rights of prisoners and free speech. Rawls’s alternative is a theory which bases principles of justice on a social contract (Rawls 1999a). German philosophers Madary and Metzinger (2016) focus on the risks of VR technologies that give users the feeling they are in a different body to their own and particularly in situations where users interact with other virtual or real people. However, the fact that a law is unjust does not give an individual the right to break or ignore it. The Community Voice Mail project discussed by Taglang 2001 would be a step in this direction. When they conflict, I shall favor universal principle ethics. It’s your moral responsibility as a user, to not make false statements or promote anything wrong. Most technological advances were not predictable and appeared only as a result of chance factors. Of data while safeguarding personally identifiable information of their much greater numbers resale Hernandez... Offending content, and even the loss of human life of human life life.... Also took other action against the manipulation or unethical use of the users a complete freedom of expression Bill. 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