AUTHOR
Anton Vedder

ABSTRACT

Providers have responsibilities relating to the textual information, images and sound recordings, accessible through their services. Apart from the people who, themselves, put information on the net, providers are the only ones who are in a position to fend off certain potentially harmful or offensive information. Furthermore, both the enormous scale on which information and other materials can be distributed through the Internet and the lack of barriers formerly present when people tried to take cognisance of the same kind of information and materials invite us to attribute these responsibilities to the providers.

Finally, three potential objections to this view are expounded and refuted. First, the alleged analogy between Internet providers and transportation companies. Second, the argument that the Internet is to be consid ed as a free zone with complete freedom of expression and freedom to perform experimental activities. Third, the idea that providers have no such responsibilities because they have no special expertise concerning social and moral matters.

AUTHOR
Marie d’Udekem-Gevers

ABSTRACT

This paper addresses the crucial subject of Internet governance, focusing on technical regulation. It analyses a large sample of current off-the-shelf filtering services (software packages, server based solutions, …) to be used in the home or in the school or even now in companies, from the unusual point of view of criteria (or categories) of filtering. The results of this study raise major ethical issues.

As a rule, the survey is based on the documentation put on the WWW by the providers of the filtering services. Services totally devoted to firms or with insufficient documentation are not considered.

The survey concerns a sample of 45 filtering services. It focuses on the access control to Internet sites (i.e. anything with a URL [Uniform Resource Locator]). From a technical point of view, this control can be maintained either at the level of the entry point or at the level of the content itself. At the entry point level, filtering can be based either on ratings (i.e. labelling) only (cf. mainly PICS [Platform for Internet Content Selection] ratings) or on classifications into lists of URLs (generally ‘black’ lists or, sometimes, lists of suggested sites) or on both ratings and lists of URLs. Filtering at the content level implies that both rating and filtering are managed in real time by software.

To ‘fix criteria for rating/classifying’ is not value-neutral and to ‘rate/classify’ can imply moral judgments. From an ethical point of view, it is thus very important that the final user (parent, teacher, …) can either do it him(/her)self (but this could be a very difficult job) or find both criteria and a rating in accordance with his (/her) own value judgments. Thanks to PICS, users can choose their filtering service and their label sources independently. This can obviously improve the situation. Thus, PICS based services are here distinguished from the others.

In the PICS rating services of the sample, the most frequent categories are: sex (6/9), violence (6/9), age (5/9), intolerance/hate speech (5/9), gambling (3/9), profanity (3/9) and language (3/9)… In the analysed black lists, the criteria are as follows: sex (15/20), age (10/20), intolerance/hate speech/racism (9/20), illegal/criminal/weapons/anarchy (9/20), violence (8/20), gambling (8/20), drugs (8/20), games/time waster/distractions/leisure (8/20),…

As regards the definition of criteria, the sample includes very different cases. Indeed, the categories are, generally, completely predefined but, in some rare filtering services, they have to be totally or partially fixed by the final user. Focusing on the authors of the predefined criteria is very interesting. In the studied sample, criteria to classify URLs are mostly (22/25) fixed by the commercial firm which provides the filtering. Ethical issues are obvious with this kind of service: users are linked to the subjective value judgments of this corporation. Apart from two Canadian corporations, all these firms (i.e. 23) are located in U.S., frequently in California (7/23). Criteria are defined only in English with one exception. Obviously, European users cannot find the reflection of their cultural diversity in these kinds of filtering services. The situation is a little less negative with the nine analysed PICS services: five of them have their categories fixed by non-profit organisations. Moreover, four of them use categories defined outside U.S. (2 in Canada, 1 in U.K. and 1 in Italy [and thus written in Italian]).

But who are the authors of the rating/classifying itself? In the cases of predefined lists of URLs in the sample (for which this information is available), the firms are always responsible for classifications: these are performed, most frequently, by employees (usually with the help of software) and, sometimes, by a proprietary software only. Moreover, except for two services, the lists of URLs are kept secret by the corporations. These facts are ethically worrying. Again, the observations about the PICS rating services are less black. In the sample, there are three third party PICS ratings of which two are independent of any firm. Moreover this standard allows an interesting solution : self rating (which is encountered in six analysed cases). On the other hand, let us add that, from an ethical point of view, filtering at the level of the content is not the best solution. Indeed it implies always that the rating is totally in charge of the algorithm author, i.e. the company.

The current state of the filtering service market should thus give some thought to all the people concerned by showing respect for individual values and for cultural diversity…

AUTHOR
Eva Turner

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates whether computing industry in Great Britain is inherently discriminating against women and people of ethnic minorities. Using a group of students who have just completed their first degree in a computing discipline, I investigate, whether their assumptions and preconceptions about computing disciplines can project into them becoming employed as technical staff by the computing industry. The survey resulted in finding that a substantial body of students have firm ideas of individual computing subjects as being male in gender, and computing disciplines as being performed by mainly white men.

The paper further compares the gender and ethnic makeup of the body of students doing computing degrees with the same in technical employees in the industry. A large discrepancy in the numbers is noted. The paper concludes that many students are lost to computing in the step from graduation to employment because their own perception of computing together with the selection criteria of the computing industry act against the selection women and ethnic minorities which in return confirms the students’ perception of computing. Through this discriminatory process the computing industry loses important resources and produces gendered tools and information systems. The paper concludes that the industry has an ethical and moral responsibility to examine the way it operates. Future research direction is identified.

AUTHOR
Harold Thimbleby, Penny Duquenoy and Gary Marsden

ABSTRACT

The new British Highway Code, the guide to safe and legal driving in Britain, has recently been updated and now interprets the Road Traffic Act (1988, sections 2 & 3) more strictly: “There is a danger of driver distraction being caused by in-vehicle systems such as route guidance and navigation systems, congestion warning systems, PCs, multi-media, etc. Do not operate, adjust or view any such system if it will distract your attention while you are driving; you MUST exercise proper control of your vehicle at all times.” And, “Safe driving needs concentration. Avoid distractions when driving such as […] tuning a radio.”

These codes arise from an increasing recognition that in-car systems are potentially dangerous because of their complexity. At the same time, manufacturers are increasing the complexity of in-car systems. Clarion, a leading manufacturer, has announced a “car PC,” a radio-sized PC, which provides Windows access to the Internet for email and other services as well as to navigation, and normal radio and hi-fi functions; see http://autopc.com/ for details. In 1998 the best-selling car radio in London had a user manual of over 500 pages.

We argue that this raises a range of pressing ethical issues. Further, the issues that are represented in a clear-cut way within this domain are indicative of more subtle trends in other domains. Our lives are becoming increasingly dominated by gadgets, and thinking clearly about the issues raised is easier in a clear-cut domain such as transport, which has a regulatory framework that makes distinctions between “appropriate” and “inappropriate” behaviour manifest.

Specifically, there are three aspects we explore as they relate to the ethical conception of justice.

1. In-car entertainment is promoted by marketing, and responds to actual and perceived consumer demand. For example, car manufacturers perceive that they can sell their cars more easily if they contain sophisticated in-car systems. Whether these systems promote a higher quality experience of driving – over a wide range of possible dimensions, such as safety, alertness, relaxation, navigational knowledge – or not is a question of fittingness.
2. Given that the in-car devices have an appearance and functionality determined by the market, a second question is whether the devices are appropriately engineered. For example if using an in-car device requires understanding a long manual, then this seems implausible.
3. The designer and user of a device do not have an equal relation mediated by the device. The designer is in control of the device and understands it deeply, but for the user, the device is fixed and largely unkown. Thus there is a lack of reciprocity between designer and user.

This paper shows that these points relate closely to justice. Point (1) relates directly to Geoffrey Cupit’s notion of justice as fittingness. Point (2) relates to John Rawls’ notion of justice following from a “veil of ignorance.” Moreover, the design community has closely corresponding concepts: (1) “task fit” and (2) “know the user” – but these have not been understood as aspects of justice. While point (3) relates to justice via the implicit social contract.

In short, there is a precise correspondence between the issues and clearly articulated notions of justice. Perhaps this is no more than interesting, but we can go further, in two ways. First, we can put ethical approaches into correspondence with various competing design paradigms (utilitarian=e.g., the ISO definition of usability; deontological=guidelines; virtue=formal methods; and so on) and thus see that there is unlikely to be a resolution of the various approaches within the design community. Secondly, Rawls’ conception of justice is operational; that is, it can be recruited as a method for designing more ethically. Thus, a Rawlsian approach can be used to change the world, rather than merely describe what is wrong with it. Since in-car devices represent a high-margin and leading-edge technology, finding ways to make these devices “better” – itself an ethical judgement – is paramount; it is pleasing, then, that there could be spin-offs into many other areas of our lives with high technology.

References

Cupit, G., 1996, Justice as Fittingness, Oxford University Press.

Rawls, J., 1972, A Theory of Justice, Oxford University Press. (Originally published 1971, Harvard University Press.)

AUTHOR
Harold Thimbleby

ABSTRACT

Digital cryptography raises many new ethical issues, but is poorly understood. Unfortunately, modern cryptography is often explained using complicated mathematics, but this sophistication is unnecessary to understand the principles.

This tutorial explains the principles of digital cryptography using clear participative exercises. Attendees will gain an insight into the powers and methods of digital cryptography, and public key cryptography in particular. Attendees will be able to send secure public key encrypted messages (e.g., across the lecture theatre) using pencil-and-paper techniques. The tutorial will also show how new ideas, apparently nothing to do with cryptography, can be supported: such as digital cash and solutions to mind bogglers like:

• I want to make a fair choice with someone I am telephoning, something that might ordinarily be done by tossing a coin. However, how can I trust the other person to toss the coin fairly, or how can they trust me?

Hence the technical relation of cryptography to trust will become much clearer.

The approach has been used with many audiences, from school children to post graduate specialists. All have appreciated the new insights gained.

AUTHOR

Herman T. Tavani

PUBLISHED IN
ETHICOMP Journal Vol 1 Issue 2

ABSTRACT

A number of recent studies and surveys have examined the impact of the Internet for personal privacy. In many of these studies, authors suggest that a host of contemporary privacy issues are directly attributable to the Internet. However, it is unclear in most of these studies exactly which privacy concerns currently associated with the Internet are unique, or in any way special, to the Internet itself. The purpose of this paper is to consider some important distinctions that can be drawn within the set of privacy issues that are now frequently attributed to the Internet.

It is argued that although most privacy concerns currently associated with the Internet are issues that were essentially introduced by earlier information and communications technologies, at least two instances of Internet-related privacy concerns have resulted from the use of certain technologies or facilities that did not exist prior to the Internet era — viz., privacy issues involving “cookies” and privacy issues involving search engines. Privacy concerns raised by these two technologies are labeled “Internet specific” and are contrasted with those labeled “Internet enhanced.” It is also argued that many of the privacy concerns in the latter category, which may have been introduced in the pre-Internet era, are now exacerbated by certain activities on the Internet. For example, privacy issues resulting from the merging and matching of computerized records across databases, the mining or extracting of data from within one or more computer databases, and the use of data-gathering tools such as forms technologies and server log files to monitor and record the activities of online users — all of which are examples of privacy concerns that were introduced by computing and networking technologies that predate the Internet — are instances of privacy issues that are now exacerbated by the Internet.

In this paper, we also consider the question whether a separate category of privacy, called “Internet privacy,” is needed or whether privacy concerns currently associated with the Internet can be adequately understood in terms of existing categories such as those of information privacy and communications privacy. In answering this question, we shall see that whereas the distinction between Internet-enhanced and Internet-specific privacy concerns is useful in helping us to understand better the impact that the Internet itself has had for personal privacy, a separate category of Internet privacy is not warranted since the majority of privacy concerns currently associated with the Internet are not qualitatively different from earlier privacy concerns that were introduced by pre-Internet, computing and networking technologies.