Thinking Ethics

Is the jury still out?

Long article on the bbc news about freeloading/borrowing/accessing/stealing other peoples bandwith by logging onto their wireless signal. It is illigal. But the article investigates if it is immoral. Some people seems to think if you are travelling and you are just checking your email, it is OK to borrow bandwith. Others are not so sure. Can you be just a little bit pregnant, or it is a binary thing? Hard to say if there are shades of grey on this one. Full article here.

Search with a conscience

I stumbled on this search story while checking out http://dotherightthing.com, - people changing business. It is sort of a collaborative site where people can learn and share how companies are impacting the world. It is possible to vote on relevant topics and the score comes out with a grade on good or bad. Back to the search engine www.goodsearch.com, everytime you search, some of the money goes to a charity  or a school that you select. So it is like - do good while you surf. More info here

Internet companies and censorship

Should they or shouldn't they... autocensor themselves in order to stay up and running in countries that have different censorship rules ? A lot has been written about this (check out ethical corporation with links to amnesty etc...), and a lot of criticism has been directed at Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft. It is not an easy question to answer. A bit like privacy rights, they are different in different cultures. So when in Rome... I guess they did what they had to do.

Another blogger fired

Christine Axsmith, a software contractor for the CIA, got fired for posting about torture and the Geneva convention on her blog. The blog was on Intelink, the intelligence community's classified intranet. The article is in the Washington Post by Dana Priest and entitled "Top Secret World Loses Bogger - CIA contractor is fired when internal post crosses the line".

Somehow I am always amazed at how these bloggers seem surprised to be fired. To start with, when you accept a job with a company, you normally agree somewhere (usually in the employment contract) to keep the company business confidential. In some countries (Switzerland for one) even without a contract you can be sued for disclosing business secrets - and the qualification of "secrets" is left for the employer to decide. You do receive compensation for this. Secondly,  a lot of these bloggers use their work computers, which belong to the company. And you are supposed to use these tools for company, not private, business. I think part of the problem comes from the fact that the lines between work and private life are becoming blurred. To check one's email during a vacation is work-related. But to answer private emails at work  can be considered stealing time from your employer. So blogging about work at work is definitely a no-no. I don't know what the equivalent for a kiss-and-tell book on the internet would be, but if one is going to do it in real time - be prepared for the consequences.

IFC's sustainability web portal

The Industrial Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank, has just issued a press release for the launch of their sustainability web portal. Responding to growing stakeholder interest, the portal connects visitors to IFC's full range of sustainability products and services, and explains the business case for sustainability - economic, financial, environmental, social and related to corporated governance - with success stories from emerging markets.

Piggybacking

Lately I have seen several pro and con articles on piggybacking - accessing an open wireless network not protected by a password. Good op/ed piece in the New York Times by Timothy B. Lee called "Hop on my bandwidth" explains many of the points. Commented on Globalethics.org in a piece entitled "Wifi Piggybacking: Stealing or Sharing". Basically some people say that by logging on to an open network, you reduce the bandwidth of the subscriber - who will be reduced to a very slow Internet response time. Also the subscriber pays for the use, and you are stealing his bandwidth. Apart from the security issues, and there are tools to monitor these (use a password, monitor the bandwidth being consumed), Timothy Lee holds to the opinion that it gives a helping hand to people before they can subscribe, or just passing through. He feels it is being neighbourly - like giving a cup of sugar. This probably leaves us with the idea that a little use is OK, but on a regular basis you should have your own subscription. Sort of a "how much use is too much" type of question.

Seven issues with Online Ethics

Carl Hausman, editor of Ethics Newsline, in an article for Globalethics.org, identified seven issues that are causing ethical problems, and that don't have much precedent. They are:

1. Digital records can live forever, requiring proactive ethical decisions about their lifespan

2. The speed of digital communication exponentially increases the chance for error

3. Data is dangerous when unsecured, creating an ethical obligation to play it safe

4. We are all engaged in cross-cultural ethics

5. We are what we link to

6. Search results are presumed to be honest and impartial, but are they ?

7. Technology enables rampant plagiarism.

which I have just done... read the original article here

Political Spin

Polls show that confidence in the integrity of politicians is at an all time low. Now politicians are editing entries on Wikipedia ! In an interesting article by Yuki Noguchi in today's Washington Post entitled " On Capital Hill playing WikiPolitics - Partisanship tests web site policies", he explains various examples of outrageous and fallacious editing. Wikipedia classifies such editing in 3 levels, from "whitewashing", which is fairly benign editing, to bad faith, and then vandalism. The politicians are not abiding by Wikipedia's policies, and are altering entries to suit their current position - so there are edits that go from altering electoral promises (say not to run more than x terms) to deleting mentions of Tom Delay in representatives' profiles. Wikipedia is monitoring 800-1000 of these editor/volunteers, and have denied access to computers connected to servers at the House of Representatives. Carrying over the sleazy spin practices of politics into the web's open forums should be resisted with vocal protestations, and even targeted hounding if this practice continues. Let's keep contributions to Wikipedia as clean and ethical as we can, and if self-regulation is not enough, let's make enough buzz to get the politician to clean up their act - at least on the open turf.

Protecting one's privacy

The US Department of Justice is after information from Search engines. It has requested Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and American Online to turn over parts of their databases. The objective is to protect children from online pornography. Google has resisted to turn over records on queries made by its users, but the Dept. of Justice is now trying to force Google to release this information. Using search engines has become a part of our everyday, if not everymoment, lives. It should not become a way into our private information. For the time being the savvy people can try to protect themselves by deleting cookies and other methods, but it will be necessary to clear this up. Far too much of our lives are now tied up in these databases, and the mining of it for commercial or other purposes is a real breach of our private identities. More on the BBC from Bill Thompson.

Blog ethics movement afoot

After launching the Bloggers Code of Ethics in 2003, CyberJournalist.Net informs us of Nick Denton's (publisher of Gawker Media) call for the creation of a Blog Ethics  Committee.  Jason Calacanis has just registered  blogethics.org and has asked Jeff Jarvis of www.Buzzmachine.com to join in. Great news - but how will it be enforced ? If the net is an open space where everyone can voice an opinion, will the collective view of what is considered bad behavior in the blogosphere be sufficient to drive out the perpetrators ? Or are we going to need some virtual tar and feathers ? If they develop into some form of moral authority, will this be very un-net ?