AUTHOR
Andrea Glorioso

ABSTRACT

In a seminal article published in 2003, Edward Felten polemically compared a mythical system for Digital Rights Management (DRM from now on), that would be able to correctly capture, interpret and enforce all the subtleties of copyright law, to a “judge on a chip”. In so doing, Felten wanted to stress how, given current technology, granting DRM systems – or, one might reason by analogy, automated systems in general – the power to take on-the-fly decisions over complex legal issues (such as whether a particular act, in and by itself constituting a copyright infringement, would fall under the defence afforded by the “fair use” doctrine in the US ) amounted to vesting such systems with the authority of the judicial branch in a democratic society. Even worse, these decisions are almost unavoidably taken ex ante, without the “judge” being able to “listen to the arguments” of each side – such as, in the case considered by Felten, copyright holders and the supposedly infringing user – before reaching a decision.

Analysis on the relationship between automated enforcement systems, such as DRM systems, and “fair use” or similar doctrines/legal provisions has been substantial – but not conclusive, at least for the time being and the foreseeable future. Similar analysis, highlighting the legal problems that arise when applying automated systems to social interactions, have taken place in other fields as well – e.g. when discussing the legal implications of applying automated filters to Internet usage and Web navigation, restricting or penalising the efficiency of access to online resources.

However, beyond the legal implications of using automated systems in the contexts described above – and in others that, for the sake of brevity, will not be discussed now – there is arguably a more subtle point to be considered, which touches upon one of the pillars the legal system, and consequently on how the law copes with automated systems: the ethical implications of using automated systems to regulate social interactions.

This contribution will focus on one specific “ethical implication”: whether, by putting in place automated systems deciding whether a particular human action should be “approved” or not, we are witnessing the birth of “ethics on a chip”, of a mythical “moral judge” that decides ex ante whether that particular human action falls within the acceptable realms of “ethical behaviour” in a given social environment. In short, the question is : “what are the ethics of creating automated ethics”?

More specifically, this contribution will analyse the way in which the usage of three particular technologies, that nowadays are mostly implemented through automated systems, might embed a particular form of ethics and, therefore, impose that ethics to the human beings that use them – often unknowingly or involuntarily: DRM systems, Internet filtering technologies and Trusted Computing.

While several forms of the “ethical implication” introduced here have already been apparent for some time – for example, the way in which DRM systems tend to impose a clear limitation on the acceptable level of “criticism”, when its expression involves a copyright infringement, as might be the case for quotations or some forms of parodies; or how Internet filtering categorises (and blocks) as “pornographic”, “immoral”, “terrorist”, “pedophile”, information and resources that ought to be analysed on a case by case basis – this contributions argues that we need a more coherent analytical approach, at least for the three technologies introduced above. This need is particularly relevant in light of the fact that these technologies are not independent from one another: one might very well imagine DRM systems based on Trusted Computing platforms and able to enforce their “ethic” not only on a local computer used by a single human being, but also on the networks – via application of automated filters – through which several human beings communicate.

While this contribution is of a theoretical nature, and the discussion it wishes to stimulate should arguably be independent of any particular way in which the technologies under examination are or will be implemented – as long as they have a fundamental characteristic that here is considered as problematic, i.e. being automated – practical examples will be used throughout the discussions as a tool and help. In the end, however, to answer the question that is raised in this contribution, it is necessary to go beyond a detailed analysis of any particular technology, and pose the more fundamental question of whether “ethics without choice”, or more precisely an ethics where human choice is severely limited by the architecture of an automated system, still deserves to be called “ethics”.

[1] See E. Felten, A skeptical view of DRM and fair use, in 48(4) Communications of the ACM, ACM, 2003: pp. 56-59.

[2] Various definitions of Digital Rights Management systems have been used throughout time, often hindering a clear and coherent discussion on the pros and cons of the “DRM approach” as a whole. In this contribution I will refer mainly to the so-called “NIST definition”, according to which DRM systems are “systems of information technology (IT) components and services along with corresponding law, policies and business models which strive to distribute and control intellectual property (IP) and its rights” (G.E. LYON, The Internet Marketplace and Digital Rights Management, NIST Software Diagnostic and Conformance Testing Division – 897, paper presented at Conference on Infrastructure for e-Business, e-Education and e-Science on the Internet (6-12 August 2001, L’Aquila, Italy), 2001.

[3] “A DRM system that gets all fair use judgements right would in effect be a “judge on a chip” predicting with high accuracy how a real judge would decide a lawsuit challenging a particular use. Clearly, this is infeasible with today’s technology. […] If our technologies can’t make the fair use judgement correctly in every case, perhaps they can get it right most of the time. Perhaps they can enforce some approximation of the law. The challenge in doing this lies again in the difficulty of internalizing the four-factor fair use test so a program can evaluate it. The true result of the test relies on economic analysis and on factors outside the computer that are not easily measured (such as the social context in which a use occurs). In some respects, the fair use test seems designed to frustrate attempts to computerize it” (E. Felten, A skeptical view of DRM and fair use, p. 58, supra at n. 1 – emphasis added).

[4] Although fair use, as a legal doctrine allowing “limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as use for scholarship or review […] [and providing] for the legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author’s work under a four-factor balancing test” (see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fair_use&oldid=192802994) is specific to the US legal system, the general principle underlined by Felten and taken as a basis for the analysis of this contribution is not US-centric, either when focusing specifically on copyright law (as most countries have similar provisions, as is the case of the “exceptions and limitations” to the exclusive rights of the author in the Italian legal system) or, more to the point, when applying the principle to other legal fields or extending it beyond legal analysis, as is the case for this contribution.

[5] See inter alia see D.L. Burk-J. Cohen, Fair Use Infrastructure for Rights Management Systems, in 15(1) Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, 2001; S. Bechtold, The Present and Future of Digital Rights Management – Musings on Emerging Legal Problems, in Eberhard Becker et al (eds.), Digital Rights Management – technological economical, legal and political aspects, Springer, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2770, November 2003; J.S. Erickson, Fair Use, DRM, and Trusted Computing, in 46(4) Communications of the ACM, ACM, 2003; P. Samuelson, DRM {and, or, vs.} the Law, in 46(4) Communications of the ACM, ACM, 2003; T.K. Armstrong, Digital Rights Management and the Process of Fair Use, in 20(3) Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, 2006; I. Brown (ed.), Implementing the European Union Copyright Directive, FIPR, 2003; S. Dusollier, Fair Use by Design in the European Copyright Directive of 2001, in 46(4) Communications of the ACM, ACM, 2003; U. Gasser-M. Girsberger, Transposing the Copyright Directive: Legal Protection of Technological Measures in EU-Member States, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Berkman Publications Series No. 2004-10, 2004; G. Westkamp (ed.), The Implementation of Directive 2001/29/EC in the Member States, Study MARKT/2005/07/D, Part II, February 2007 (in particular sec. I.B, sec. I.D.III, sec. I.D.V, sec. I.D.VI and part III); G. Mazziotti, EU Digital Copyright Law and the End-User, Springer, Berlin, forthcoming, 2008.

[6] See inter alia the reports of the project “OpenNet Initiative” ( http://opennet.net/). Drawing from the taxonomy developed by the OpenNet project, in this contribution I will mostly refer to the cases of “technical blocking”, i.e. using automated systems to decide whether a particular Internet resource should be made accessible or not. The other cases discussed by the OpenNet project, namely “search results removal”, “take-down” and “induced self-censorship” appear less relevant for the conceptual framework I purport to develop, although all of them – and particularly the last, “induced self-censorship” (i.e. “encouraging self-censorship both in browsing habits and in choosing content to post online […] through the threat of legal action, the promotion of social norms, or informal methods of intimidation [as well as] [t]he perception that the government is engaged in the surveillance and monitoring of Internet activity, whether accurate or not, [which] provides another strong incentive to avoid posting material or visiting sites that might draw the attention of authorities”) are indeed relevant in a more general discussion on the ethics of ICT-based practices. See http://opennet.net/about-filtering for further discussion on the taxonomy proposed by the OpenNet project.

[7] The debate on the so-called principle of “Network Neutrality” is another case in which the legal legitimacy of Internet Access Providers penalising (slowing down or blocking tour court) access to certain Internet resources has been questioned. However, the debate so far does not seem to have focused specifically on the implications of (some) Internet Access Providers using automated systems to achieve their goals, but rather on more general aspects related to freedom of expression (see supra n. 6), competition law (T.R. Beard-G.S. Ford-T.M. Koutsky-L.J. Spiwak, Network Neutrality and Industry Structure, in 29 Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal, 2007, p. 149; M. Cave-P. Crocioni, Does Europe Need Network Neutrality Rules?, in 1 International Journal of Communication, 2007, pp. 669-679) and the economic analysis of innovation dynamics (M.A. Lemley-L. Lessig, The End of End-to-End: Preserving the Architecture of the Internet in the Broadband Era, UC Berkeley Law & Econ Research Paper No. 2000-19; Stanford Law & Economics Olin Working Paper No. 207; UC Berkeley Public Law Research Paper No. 37, 2000; T. Wu, Network Neutrality: Competition, Innovation, and Nondiscriminatory Access, Working Paper, 2006; S. Crawford, Internet Think, in Journal of Telecommunications and High Technology Law, 2007).

[8] This contribution will not discuss the general relationship between ethics and the law, i.e. whether the law should promote any particular kind of ethics. It will, however, touch upon the issue whether the law should promote a vision of ethics that deprives human beings from the possibility to choose a particular course of action – therefore, one might say, depriving the concept of “ethics” of its very foundation.

[9] Obviously, the fact that the systems discussed in this article are being used to regulate activities which are or might be conducted via the Internet raises another issue, i.e. what should be the appropriate “social environments” which rules ought to be taken as a reference when assessing human behaviour in a global environment which interconnects very different cultures and social groups. While the problem exists and does not easily lend itself to clear-cut answers à la “information wants to be free”, this contribution will not delve too much on it, mainly because its aim is to discuss more fundamental – and, one might say, abstract – questions related to the ethics of using automated systems for assessing the ethics of a human action. Answering these questions might very well lead to the conclusion that even though some form of filtering might be desirable, due to the differences among different social groups and the desire to shield members of one social group from the “damaging” cultural expressions of another, implementing such filtering through automated systems would be unacceptable even for the social group that wants to be shielded.

[10] In this contribution the definition of “technology” introduced in R.G. Lipsey, K. I. Carlaw, C. T. Bekar, Economic Transformations – General Purpose Technologies and Long Term Economic Growth, Oxford University Press, 2005, p.58, will be used, i.e. “the set of ideas specifying all activities that create economic value […] comprising (1) knowledge about product technologies, the specifications of everything that is produced; (2) knowledge about process technologies, the specifications of all processes by which goods and services are produced; (3) knowledge about organisational technologies, the specification of how productive activity is organised in productive and administrative units for producing present and future goods and services”.

[11] See supra n. 3.

[12] See supra n. 6.

[13] Trusted Computing “is a technology […] through which the computer will consistently behave in specific ways, and those behaviours will be enforced by hardware and software. Enforcing this Trusted behaviour is achieved by loading the hardware with a unique ID and unique master key and denying even the owner of a computer knowledge and control of their own master key. Trusted Computing is extremely controversial as the hardware is not merely secured for the owner; enforcing Trusted behaviour means it is secured against the owner as well” (see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Trusted_Computing&oldid=193004477 ). For more information, see the specifications available on the web site of the Trusted Computing Group at https://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org/specs/.

[14] See supra n. 5.

[15] On September 10, 2007, Franco Frattini, Vice-president of the European Commission and Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security, declared that he intended “”to carry out a clear exploring exercise with the private sector … on how it is possible to use technology to prevent people from using or searching dangerous words like bomb, kill, genocide or terrorism” (Reuters, Web search for bomb recipes should be blocked: EU, 10 September 2007). Mr. Frattini does not seem to have advanced any concrete proposal after his declaration, and to be fair (and optimistic) it is questionable whether what he implied as a goal for his “exploratory exercise” was the creation of automated systems to filter/censor access to “terrorist” information or rather of a fast-lane for law enforcement agencies to block certain web-sites ex post.

[16] In Italy, Decree 8 January 2007 of the Minister of Communications (“Technical requirements of filtering tools that providers of connectivity to the Internet must use, with the goal to inhibit, pursuant to existing law, access to web-sites as indicated by the National Center for Fighting Paedopornography”) obliges all Internet Access Providers to routinely check a list provided by the Ministry of Interior and automatically block access to any web-site contained in that list within 6 hours of receiving the list. The decree does not contain any provision on whom should be able to access that list – for example, to question the inclusion of a particular web-site – nor how the owners of a web-site that ended up on the list could ask its removal.

AUTHOR
Lee Gillam and Anna Vartapetiance Salmasi

ABSTRACT

Against a background of UK Government offices losing a variety of personal data, we consider the potential implications for the storage of DNA and its transmission across Europe. It is reported that the UK has the largest DNA database in the world covering 5% of the population, and that is 50% larger than the combination of data in all of the remaining EU member states. In addition, the UK has over 4 million CCTV cameras monitoring the movements of citizens, and producing significant volumes of potential video evidence. Under UK Law, appropriate signage is meant to be used to inform citizens of monitoring and surveillance, but there are a variety of questions regarding informed consent in the collection of DNA.

The intended purpose of data collection on such a scale is crime detection. Projects undertaken at this scale can be viewed to be broadly based on the following inference: criminals are the minority and anybody could be a criminal, therefore we can only know if crime is committed if we are monitoring everybody. Objections to such a line of reasoning can be made along inferential lines that if you object to such a collection, you must have something to hide, and therefore must be a criminal: thus we criminalize objectors with straw men.

DNA has a number of interesting features, from its structure as discovered by Crick and Watson, to figures regarding its uniqueness. But it has one additional feature of interest: it can travel to places its “owner” has never been. Consider, for example, swabs of saliva being taken from buses and used to trace individuals (Ross Lydall, 2007). Aside from the nature of this incident in itself, suppose that a crime were committed on a bus at some distance from where the saliva’s owner had departed the bus. The DNA trace would be uniquely identifying, implicating the owner, but the presumption of innocence of the latter crime would then become difficult to argue. Put another way, our DNA can travel to places we’ve never been, and stay there for a very long time.

This paper will discuss positive and negative consequences of DNA databases with reference to legal and ethical issues, but also in relation to the question for professional software developers: is it right to develop such software? Consideration of potential consequences is important to understand the possibility for harm to EU citizens, every one of whom may become more than merely a stakeholder in the DNA database. We will take account of doubts about the utility of DNA in fighting crimes the ways in which the database is being used and controlled, and how the information contained becomes a target for external attacks due to the high-value of information about health, family relationships, appearance, and associated data related to behavior, not just identity. Our intention is to explore what recommendations could be made for such systems, or whether it is indeed possible to make recommendations.

We will take account of arguments that a DNA database containing samples of acquitted suspects increases the number of samples but does not increase the likelihood of solving crimes (GeneWatch, Feb. 2007) or preventing wrongful convictions (Parliament Publications and Records, Mar. 2007). We consider that people are fighting for their DNA and rights in courts (OUT-LAW, Jul. 2004; OUT-LAW, Apr. 2007 ) while companies in charge of keeping the samples (Forensic Science Service) are fighting to retrieve stolen database information and DNA samples (Gallagher, Ian, Mar. 2007). We will also consider questions over privacy and human rights (Johnston P, Waterfield B, 2007), and broad viewpoints as emerge from the application of ethical theories to the notion of trading for civil liberties for personal protection.

Our main focus, however, will be on the question of whether software developers can follow codes of ethics that may preclude the development of such databases: whether these professionals are being honest and trustworthy about risks of database and providing sufficient protection for fundamental human rights and the privacy of others, unveiling the potential dangers of such systems to users or the public and managing the database to reduce the possible risks. According to the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) there is no specific framework proposed for an EU shared database (OUT-LAW, Jun. 2007). Those in the UK may be able to rely to some extent on the Data Protection Act, however the extent of protection beyond this needs to be considered.

It may be that we can only limit how much we invade privacy, but we have to balance this against intended use & unintended use and consequences.

REFERENCES

Gallagher, Ian (Mar.2007). “Five civil servants suspended over ‘DNA espionage’”. [Online] Daily Mail. (31 March 2007). http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=445902&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=&ito=1490 [Access data: January 2008]

GeneWatch (Feb. 2007). “Police Retention of DNA”. [Online] GeneWatch. (February 2007).http://www.genewatch.org/uploads/f03c6d66a9b354535738483c1c3d49e4/Councillorsbrief07_2.pdf [Access data: January 2008]

Johnston P, Waterfield B (2007) “DNA data deal ‘will create Big Brother Europe’”. [online] The Telegraph (18 February 2007) [Access data: January 2008]

OUT-LAW (Jul. 2004) “Police to retain DNA from acquitted suspects.” [Online] OUT-LAW.COM. (26 July 2004) http://www.out-law.com/page-4740 [Access data: January 2008]

OUT-LAW (Apr. 2007). “DNA database ‘will span most of the UK population’”. [Online] OUT-LAW. (11 April 2007). http://www.out-law.com/page-7945 [Access data: January 2008]

OUT-LAW (Jun. 2007). “Police will share data across Europe against privacy chief’s advice” [Online] OUT-LAW.COM (14 June 2007). http://www.out-law.com/default.aspx?page=8148 [Access data: January 2008]

Parliament-Publications-and-Records (Mar. 2007). “Memorandum by the Information Commissioner”. [Online] Parliament.uk. (1 March 2007). http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200607/ldselect/ldeucom/90/90we02.htm [Access data: January 2008]

(Ross Lydall, 2007) DNA kits to trace spitting passengers [online] London Lite (31 may 2007) http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23398753-details/DNA+kits+to+trace+spitting+passengers/article.do [Access data: January 2008]

AUTHOR
Anne Gerdes

ABSTRACT

It is generally acknowledged that trust plays an important role for the flourishing of collaborative relations in real life as well as in cyberspace. This paper analyses preconditions for trust in virtual learning environments. The concept of trust is discussed with reference to cases reporting trust in cyberspace (Jarvenpee & Leidner, 1999, Petitt, 2004, de Laat, 2005) and through a philosophical clarification holding that trust in the form of self-surrender is a common characteristic of all human co-existence (Løgstrup, 1997). This analysis of trust serves as a framework for explaining obstacles and possibilities in connection with building trust in virtual learning environments.

Despite didactic considerations and the best of intentions (Sherry, 2000, Sorensen, 2002, Salmon 2005), learners often find that online learning activities to a certain degree subject their surroundings to standardisation, self-monitoring and surveillance (Land & Bayne, 2005). When technology affords moves towards self and group- surveillance, identity moves towards being a question of how you are able to represent yourself in the learning system. Here, what you might call deliberated self-surrender could be a suitable way to respond to a design that offers you an opportunity to communicate and present yourself after always having reflected upon how to stage your communication. Such mechanisms of communication are well known from face-to-face situations as well (Goffman, 1959). However, here learners often participate in the negotiation of meaning through communication that is not reified, whereas online communication is often subject to reification, and accessible in logs. In the ideal sense, logs give rise to meta-reflections regarding learning processes (Fontaine, 2002), but at the same time, logs afford surveillance both between learners as well as between learners and teacher. Furthermore, the teacher traditionally possesses a role which reflects an asymmetric relation of power between being a facilitator of communication and at the same time representing a formal authority with a duty to evaluate students’ performance. This paradox is further reinforced in a virtual setting, since in most learning environments there are sophisticated surveillance tools available for tracking student activity (Land & Bayne 2005). This might gradually push the role of teaching towards one of learning management instead of one of facilitating communication. These circumstances might promote a competitive setting on behalf of a collaborative setting, and thereby negatively, influence the ethos of teaching.

Although concerned with the potential problem of surveillance, researchers and teachers as well as students often cherish logs in discussion boards as facilitating tools for scaffolding reflection and ongoing discussions during a semester. Nevertheless, it becomes relevant to raise the issue, whether there is a built-in tension between espoused theories that a didactic design is based on and theories-in-use in connection with e-tivities? How can we be sure that participation in such e-tivities constitutes evidence of reflection rather than of impression management? There might be a risk that learning environments actually strengthen and endorse the kind of communication in which learners are eager to perform rather than to be involved in engaged collaboration. To obtain the kind of unconditional commitment necessary for learning, one might benefit from the insights from open source communities, in which self-articulation of goals and volunteerism promote productivity (Benkler & Nissenbaum, 2006). Balancing free will in connection with study initiatives with inquiry teaching methods might encourage a practice, which favours mastery-oriented learning strategies and the seeking of knowledge for its own sake.

REFERENCES

Arendt, H. (1973), Remarks by Hannah Arendt, Advisory Council, Princeton University, Princeton.

Aristotle, transl. by L. H. G. Greenwood (1909), Nicomachean ethics: book six. University Press.

Benkler, Y., Nissenbaum, H. (2006) Commons-based Peer Production an Virtue, The Journal of Political Philospfhy, 14(4), 394-419.

de Laat, P. B. (2005), Trusting virtual trust, Ethics and Information Technology, 7, 167-180.

Dillenborug, P. (1999), Introduction: What Do You Mean By “Collaborative learning”? In: (ed): Dillenbourg, P., Collaborative Learning – Cognitive and Computational Approaches, Pergamon, 1- 19.

Fontaine, G. (2002) Presence in Teleland. In: K. Rudestam & J. Schoenholtz-Read (eds.) A handbook on teaching in the virtual classroom: A guide to excellence in online education, Thousand Oaks.

Gadamer, H. G. (2004), Truth and method, Continuum.

Goffman, E. (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Anchor.

Jarvenpaa, S.L., Leidner, D. E. (1999), Communication and Trust in Global Virtual Teams, Organization Science, 10(6), 791-815.

Kirschner, P., Strijbos, J-W, Kreijns, K., Beers, P.J. (2004), Designing Electronic Collaborative Learning Environments, Educational Technology Research & Development, 52(3), 47-56.

Kling. R, Courtright, C. (2004), Group behaviour and learning in electronic formus: a socio-technical approach. In: (eds.): S. A. Barab, R. Kling, J. H. Gray, Designing for Virtual communities in the service of learning, Cambridge University Press, 91-120.

Land, R., Bayne, S. (2005) Screen or monitor? Issues of surveillance and disciplinary power in online learning environments. In: R. Land, S. Bayne (eds.), Education in Cyberspace, RoutledgeFalmer, 165-179.

Levey, M. D. (2007), No time to think: reflections on information technology and contemplative scholarship, Ethics and Information Technology, 9, 237-249.

Løgstrup, K. E. (1997) The Ethical Demand, University of Notre Dam Press.

MacIntyre, A. (1999), After Virtue, Duckworth.

Pettit, P. (2004), Trust, Reliance and the Internet, Analyse & Kritikk, 26, 108-121.

Platon, transl. with notes by C.C. W. Taylor (1991), Protagoras, Clarendon Press.

Salmon, G. (2005), E-tivities the key to active online learning, RouthledgeFarmer.

Sherry, L. (2000), The nature and purpose of online conversations: A brief synthesis of current research, International Journal of Educational Telecommunications, 6(1), 19-52.

Sorensen, E. (2002), Distributed CSCL – a Situated, Collaborative Tapestry. In: In: (eds.): L. Dircknick-Holmfled, B. Fibiger, Learning in Virtual Environments, Samfundslitteratur, 165-192.

AUTHOR
Roberto Garigliano and Luisa Mich

ABSTRACT

Users who take part in online communities often develop deep attachments that have a series of consequences on their lives. We argue that in order to understand this long-term loyalty and its effects, it is useful to analyse it as a form of switching cost, often generated by specific features of the sites.

Online Markets are often supposed to be very fluid, i.e. very open to competition. However, the high level of profits that some online business achieve, and the extremely high valuation that the financial markets assign to some online business shows that some form of barriers to competition are at work. The paper starts by analysing the traditional barriers to entry in the offline world. It suggests that most of these barriers have little effect online, with the exception of User Preferences (a specific form of switching costs). In particular, User Investment – a form of User Preference characteristic of the web – is often so strong to represent a Barrier to Exit (BtE) for the users. Data analysis shows that such BtE are particularly active in the presence of online Communities (defined here in the wider sense of sites where users exchange something such as information, goods, services, money etc) among themselves. The paper analyses the forms of these BtE in details, showing when and how they work. Recent developments in the online business world discussed in the paper fit very well with this analysis. Since these BtE based upon User Investments, especially in an online community context, have a strong emotional element, and tend to expand both in terms of time spent and in terms of personal commitment, they obviously have a major impact on the social and personal well being of the users. The paper discusses these elements, putting them in a relationship with the business needs on one side, and on users’ mass behaviour on the other.

The traditional barriers to entry can be categorised as:

• Investment: advantages deriving from the fact that it requires a large investment for a new entry to catch up.
• Technology: advantage based on the use of proprietary technology.
• Regulations: advantages due to the effect of some market rules.
• Network Effect: this is the well-known effect by which some products are useful only when they reach a critical mass of users (e.g. the telephone system).
• Switching Costs (including Users’ Preferences): advantages due to the fact that the users prefer to stay with their existing supplier, because of advantages in staying or of disadvantages in moving.

For each category, a definition is provided in the full paper, and it is then shown how that particular barrier applies in general to the online world.

Various aspects of User Preference are discussed in the paper: inertia, inducements, personal investment. The paper then concentrates on User Personal Investment, which our analysis shows to be the biggest factor in users’s retention. This is thus shown to be a major Barrier to Exit (BtE).

Users’ Own Investment is a very special form of Users’ Preference, as it is not based on giving something extra to the user, but on the principle that the user has invested heavily in the site and would lose the investment if they switched. This effect can be observed in the offline market too, but it is very marginal. In the online world users may have invested the equivalent of several hours a day for a year or more (plus the emotional and social investments), so the switch can be traumatic. The mechanism in the online enviroment which causes such investment is examined in details, followed by a description of the social, emotional, psychological effects on the users.

Of course such mechanisms are present in the offline world, but usually outside the business sphere. The novelty is that in the online world such features are crucial in the business world too.

the online world is fundamentally discrete, unlike the offline world, which is fundamentally continuous in our perception. E.g., if a consumer buys an item offline, by and large they can take it with them wherever they want. If they establish relationship in a particular environment (e.g. work or study), those relationships can easily carry on in other environments; if they make a reputation for themselves in a field, that reputation travels with them and so on. Online, it is very different: virtual objects bought or created in a site usually exist only there; relationships acquired in a site usually remain there, unless an external contact is made (which is why many sites try to stop that to happen); reputation, power, image etc. exist only in a particular site and cannot be carried outside and so on.

The User Investment (UI) can be categorised as follows:

• Relations networks
• Public Image (prestige, leadership etc.)
• Power
• Virtual Objects Possession
• Specific Knowledge
• Evolution from below

Each of the UI categories can in turn be described in terms various subcategories as follows (which are fully described in the paper):

Relationship networks
Simplified
Idealised
Re-structured

• Image
  • Organised social structure
  • Explicit rules with clear consequences
  • Hierarchies/careers’ structure
  • Variety of roles (creation, control, entertainment, enterpreneurship, information, deviancy etc.)
• Power
  • Recognisability
  • Emergence of elites
  • Precise duties and limits
• Possession of virtual objects
  • Guarantee of ownership
  • internal transfer
  • Social use/sharing (even outside)
  • New trend: external convertibility
• Specific knowhow
  • Social
  • Creative
  • Technological
• Evolution from below
  • Technology
  • Rules
  • Structures
  • Economy

Observable trends support our theoretical forecast that more and more sites, and in particular all the very successful and profitable ones, must move towards some form of community, or see their market share attacked and their profit levels reduced. The most recent observations about this in the fields of online retail and email use patterns are quoted. Also, the web sites which are based on some community are bound to attempt an increase in User Investment, which is also pushed by the users’ dynamics. Finally, some impacts of this process on the users, both personally and socially, are discussed.

AUTHOR
Angel Luis Garcia and Porfirio Barroso

ABSTRACT

This year we will be celebrating the tenth edition of ETHICOMP (Ethics and Computer). Ten editions in which this congress has become one of the most important and relevant congresses in the world about Computer Ethics and it has also become a central reference within the field of Computer Ethics. Some time has passed since the first edition that took place at the University of Leicester in 1995 and many papers have been sent along with over 600 documents. Due to this wealth of material, it is necessary to do a qualitative and a quantitative analysis of the documents sent in the last nine congresses to come up with conclusions about the historic evolution of ETHICOMP and, by extension, of the past, present, and, why not, of the future of Computer Ethics.

Deepening on this idea, it would not be wrong to point out that the main objective of this article is to discover the key to the growth and development of the first nine editions of ETHICOMP. That is, we need to do an analysis of all documents sent to the various editions of the congress that due to the important list and participants, bringing together the best people of Computer Ethics, represent all possible views of the different areas Computer Ethics.

To accomplish this task, the chosen material could be no other than the more than 600 articles that have been submitted in the first nine editions of ETHICOMP emphasizing the evolution of Computer Ethics through the analysis obtained from the conferences sent over the years allowing us to see how interests, views, and the treatment of the articles have changed and evolved.

We began by getting the official Books of Proceedings of the nine congresses, work that would allow us to extract the entire database from which we can perform our qualitative and quantitative analysis. We continued to the reading, analysis, and categorization of all articles submitted. This process was conducted in a systematic way to extract patterns and common modes of analysis to frame all presented articles in a series of common levels comparable among them. To accomplish such a task, we developed a thematic categorization of the articles according to a series of forty ethical principles that served as a basis on which to frame and observe the range of thematic categories that appeared more frequently over the several congresses. Building on this work, in addition to the thematic categorization of the articles, we also highlighted other qualitative aspects such as the possible relationship of the articles to both their historical circumstances and the proposals by ETHICOMP. We also studied other purely quantitative aspects such as the evolution of the number of sent articles and the number of authors present in the conferences.

Once we categorized the articles and having in our hands the important database, we needed to put together the data to carry out our analysis that could reach the conclusions that would help us understand the evolution of the first nine editions of ETHICOMP. To do this, we decided to first analyze each of the congresses separately in an effort to extract dominant trends and relationships with thematic or historical circumstances in each conference, thus facilitating subsequent comparison of different editions. After completing each of the nine separate analysis, we moved to the second stage: a complete analysis of the entire group of articles sent to all editions with the goal of drawing more global conclusions observing the variation of some variants such as the predominant theme in ETHICOMP, the proposed theme by ETHICOMP, the trend in the number articles sent, or the profiles of the authors.

After completing this analysis, we obtained a series of results that can be used to reflect the evolution of ETHICOMP in this period of time. Thus, it was possible to identify three different timeframes with respect to the most discussed subject. First, up to 1999 the prevailing concept was the “Necessity of the existence of some ethical aspects and deontological guidelines.” Subsequently, more attention was given to the “Academic preparation and continued education.” Finally, from 2002 to the present, the most prevailing theme has been the “Development, promotion, and access to Computer Science.” In these trends the proposed themes by ETHICOMP have not been very influential, since the sent articles did not keep up with the proposed themes by the ETHICOMP organization.

Extrapolating these most discussed topics to all the nine editions we see that the most prevalent issues in the three phases of ETHICOMP are also the predominant ones among the total of the more than 600 presented documents. Thus, the most historically present topic in ETHICOMP would be the “Development, promotion, and access to Computer Science” with 18.34% of the articles, the second would be was “Necessity of the existence of some ethical aspects and deontological guidelines” with 14.83 % of the articles, and the third would the “Academic preparation and continued education” with 13.24%. Finally, in the analysis of quantitative character, we looked at the profiles of the authors who submit their articles to ETHICOMP, focusing on the authors who attended ETHICOMP the most, and also focusing on the authors who submitted the highest number of articles. Moreover, to complete our analysis, we conducted the evolution of the number of sent papers to each edition of the congresses, noting that after the first stage of expansion and strong growth until 1999, the congress has stabilized around the 80 articles per edition.

These are some initial results and conclusions that, with a more detailed vision, will help us analyze and show, through the study of ETHICOMP, the major trends, centers of attention, and, more generally, the evolution of Computer Ethics in the past decade.

AUTHOR
William M. Fleischman

ABSTRACT

For ten years now, we have been participating in a collaborative effort with students and teachers of the Julia de Burgos Elementary School in North Philadelphia designed to overcome some of the obstacles to technological inclusion and educational progress that affect young students from low-income families. Those of us engaged in this effort understand our purpose to be that of striking an appropriate balance between two competing foci that have dominated thinking and practice in public education in the United States. These foci are represented in the two formulations 1) strong schools produce strong citizens and 2) strong schools produce a strong economy. Although the past century and a half has seen successive periods in which one of these two foci displaced the other in the foreground of public education, there has been an underlying commitment to the principle that public education, as a portal to productive citizenship, is a public good that should be available equally to all children. The problem, of course, comes from the thorny question of achieving equality or, at the very least, a measure of equity when the basis for school funding is so badly skewed against the interests of students in the public schools of our largest cities.

In this context, our effort represents an investment of resources, on behalf of students and teachers at one city school, to level, at least to a small degree, a badly tilted playing field. The further circumstance that this effort is going forward within the frame of reference provided by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 has complicated the mechanics of the collaboration in several ways. At the same time, our awareness of the pressures imposed by NCLB has served to deepen our commitment to the children and teachers involved and to direct our attention to fundamental issues and values associated with the role of computer technology in public education and to consideration of the valence of the World Wide Web, especially as a resource for poor children.

As characterized by Professor Larry Cuban of Stanford University, the prevalent view of educational reformers holds “that increased availability [of technology] in the classroom would lead to increased use. Increased use … would then lead to more efficient teaching and better learning which, in turn would yield able graduates who can compete in the workplace.” The only obstacle to this smooth and inexorable process of transformation appears to be the need of many urban public school teachers to invest their time urgently in preparing students for the high-stakes examinations mandated by NCLB. Thus, apart from exam preparation drill, the use of technology in the classroom has the air of a discretionary activity reserved for teachers and students in more fortunate circumstances.

Against this background, we have been able to implement, in collaboration with the eighth-grade teaching team at our partner school, a year-long curriculum leading to completion of multi-disciplinary exit projects by all the eighth-grade students at the school. The exit-project curriculum combines experience with a variety of software packages, the introduction of concepts of life expectancy and average length of healthy life (formally, disability adjusted life expectancy) and research on student-selected topics related to life expectancy and risk factors that are of immediate relevance to the students by virtue of social and environmental conditions affecting them and their families. This effort has been recognized as of sufficient value that, even in the face of NCLB-mandated pressure of maintaining adequate yearly progress (AYP) the newly-appointed principal of the school has asked us to implement a second iteration of the exit- project curriculum in the current school year.

Returning to the question of striking an appropriate balance between the desiderata of preparing students for the twenty-first century economy and helping them understand the challenges and possibilities of their role as citizens, we recognize that the deeper and longer-lasting effects of education for citizenship are, to some extent, purchased by means of the more readily apparent value of technological education for the near-term marketplace. On the one hand, exposure to and practice with important software packages helps develop a sense of confidence in grade school students that can propel them in the direction of more interesting futures, thus converting them from victims of inequities in access to technology to potentially more resilient contributors to the national economy. On the other hand, the nature of the research and reflection incorporated in the exit-project curriculum encourages students to think like independent citizens, not mere interchangeable economic units.

In the course of our work with the eighth-grade students, we have had the opportunity to observe their changing attitudes toward technology and the possibilities of connectedness through access to information available on the World Wide Web. In this paper, we discuss some of the encouraging, but occasionally contradictory and confounding, aspects of this interaction. In particular, we consider the ways in which increased self-confidence through the use of technology helps counteract the potentially negative effects of the computer as the site of educational humiliation in connection with the administration of high-stakes exams. We discuss also, and in the words of the young students themselves, the complicated valence of the World Wide Web as a medium of individual social expression, a resource for interpreting one’s role as citizen and responsible family member, and a source of both passive and active entertainment.