Todd Suomela's Library tagged information-ethics →  View Popular, Search in Google

Information isn't the new oil; opacity is the new oil. The ability to be opaque -- the opposite of transparent -- is increasingly rare, valuable, and in many cases worth fighting for. It's also potentially quite dangerous, often dirty, and can be a catalyst for trouble. In short, it's just like oil. (Which makes me wonder when we'll have a new OPEC -- Organization of Privacy Enabling Companies.)

  

Opacity isn't inherently good or bad -- it's both. To people who need privacy and secrecy to survive, opacity is immensely, critically valuable; for people who want privacy and secrecy to hide misbehavior, opacity is also rather important. But for individuals and organizations alike, opacity is becoming harder to maintain.

  

Some people have argued that privacy is dead. Typically, those making this argument are wealthy white guys, able to buy as much privacy as they want (and likely to get extremely annoyed when their privacy is violated). And for folks like these, opacity will always be easier to come by than for the rest of us.

It's the last approach that really interests me: Pollution. Poisoning the data stream. Putting out enough false information that the real information becomes unreliable. At that point, anyone wishing to know the truth about me has to come to me directly, allowing me to control access. It's hardly a perfect option -- the untrue things can be permanently connected to you, and it does kind of make you hard to trust online -- but it's the one approach to opacity that's purely social and extremely difficult to stop.

  

Quick question: for those of you on Facebook, did you provide your real birthday? If so, why?

  

Part of the reason why commercial entities are able to run roughshod over our personal privacies is that we've become programmed to give them our information. They'll say in BIG SCARY LETTERS that you must provide truthful personal info, but seriously -- if you give Facebook a fake date of birth, how are they going to know? If you check in from fake locations, how can they prove you're not where you say you are? Your actual friends and family will know the truth.

  

And here's the fun part: if lots of people start lying about themselves on social media, even the truth becomes unreliable.

No, I think it's because our online relationships aren't at all like my real-world relationship with Al. The full nature of the transaction isn't obvious, visible, and transparent and there is little chance a corporation will think like my friend. Most of the relationships you build with corporations are like icebergs and essentially hidden from view, and corporations like it that way. We don't really want people asking questions about stuff we think they won't understand. As corporations we may be sociopathic, but even a sociopath knows that awkward questions aren't just uncomfortable, they're bad for business.

  

So, assuming there could be a more human corporation, that could build symmetric ethically-grounded relationships with you, what would that relationship look like? Would transparency and choice be enough to make it symmetric? Could a relationship with a corporation feel at all like the one I have with Al? Could it be obvious, transparent, and a pleasure in its own right? Or, what if instead of asking ourselves "what data do we need and how could we get lift from it?" we asked "what is the value to our customer when we store and use this data and how do we make both the value and our stewardship of the data obvious and transparent?"

The Center for Information Policy Research (CIPR) was established in 1998, at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, School of Information Studies (UWM-SOIS)

 

 

 

The Center facilitates information policy research through its lecture series, research agenda, consulting and outreach activities, and its information ethics fellows program. With information infrastructures and technologies and the globalization of information evolving at a faster pace than our social, legal, and educational systems, it is imperative that information policy issues be examined systematically in an interdisciplinary environment. The CIPR welcomes formal and informal collaborations with other institutions and agencies.

Search Engine Land points out that "Amit Patel, Google employee number 6 and one of Google's first engineers, coined 'Do Not Be Evil' in 1999 when the engineers became afraid of the pressure they might receive from the business units of the company."

    

If organizations are ultimately institutionally incapable of ensuring ethical behavior, than what will? A public motto that pledges ethical behavior.

  

Patel's brilliance is his long-term vision. As an engineer, he was in a better position than most people to understand the vast trove of data a company like Google could compile on individuals. Such information stores could potentially invite abuse.

  

Do Not Be Evil. The phrase is simple and unambiguous and, in the end, gives Google no choice but to maintain the motto because the alternative is...evil

This is an academic website on information ethics. It is a platform for exchanging information about worldwide teaching and research in our field. It gives the opportunity to meet each other. It provides news on ongoing activities by different kinds of organizations. And it is free. The success of this website depends on the will of the people interested in this subject to share their knowledge with others.

The IRIE is the official journal of the International Center for Information Ethics (ICIE). It envisions an international as well as intercultural discussion focusing on the ethical impacts of information technology on human practices and thinking, social interaction, other areas of science and research and the society itself.