Module 3 Flashcards
Selections from “Beyond Innovation and Competition” - Frank Pasquale
Secrecy behind Google’s PageRank algorithm. Google’s algorithm focuses on what websites users WANT to find, not, necessarily, on the most INFORMATIVE or even the most RELEVANT websites. Ranking is based on your history.
The moral issue is whether users are “getting unbiased and objective results when they initiate a search.”
Pasquale also mentions Comcast. “Comcast appeared to be blocking file-sharing applications by creating fake data packets that interfered with trading sessions [because] [t]he packets were cleverly disguised to look as if they were coming from the user, not the ISP.”
What does Pasquale say about holding companies accountable?
He says scholar’s who believe that the market “should figure it out”, haven’t paid enough attention to the kind of innovation that is best for society. They have not thought through the non-economic threats, e.g., privacy, reputation, and the democratic cultures that users tend to find themselves in.
What do those in favor of deregulation say?
Those in favor of deregulation will argue for the “bottom-line.” They will say that if ISPs and search engines must allow the FCC and other overseers in, they are going to lose customers.
Pasquale says: “the cultural, political, and privacy concerns raised by search engines and carriers cannot be translated into traditional economic analysis. They raise questions about the type of society we want to live in - a holistic inquiry that cannot be reduced to the methodological individualism of neoclassical economics.”
Pasquale’s steps towards Accountability
1 - Transparency: not keeping everyone informed, just those who are regulating networking and search.
Part II Section A: Net Neutrality as Innovation Policy
Barbara Van Sweikt: “network operators unconstrained by such rules would inevitably be tempted to elevate the salience and availability of partners’ applications and content and this block or degrade access to competitors’ applications.”
Part IV: Monitoring and Accountability
Pasquale proposes an advisory committee within the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). “I would recommend the formation of an Internet Intermediary Regulatory Council (IIRC), which assists both the FCC and FTC in carrying out their present missions.”
Cyberethics: Chapter 2: Regulating and Governing Networked Technologies - Richard Spinello
Social Networking
Cyber-bullying
Regulating the Digital Infrastructure - Richard Spinello
Lessig’s four constraints that regulate our behavior in cyberspace: laws, norms, market, and code.
Can cyberspace be regulated like real life?
Architecture of the Internet is not centralized, it is distributed. Thus, it cannot.
As John Gilmore says, “the net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”
Spinello says: “if we don’t have a physical center, we won’t have a moral one.” At least in terms of something that can be held accountable for the information traveling across the internet.
What else makes regulating the internet difficult?
- It’s digital information
- Geography
According to Spinello, what is Internet Governance?
Governance refers to managing matters (e.g., determination of technical standards, management of domain names, IP addresses) rather than regulating the Net through content controls or other mechanisms.
What is DNS (Domain Name System)?
The Domain Name System maps domain names of organizations, educational institutions, government agencies, etc.
Who now operates the DNS?
It is run by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). While they are responsible for domain names, they do not actually distribute them. This is done by domain name registrars, like GoDaddy, Network Solutions, VeriSign, etc.
What is cybersquatting and why might it be an ethical issue?
Cybersquatting is the practice of registering names, especially well-known company or brand names, as Internet domains, in the hope of reselling them for a profit.
Cyberethics: Chapter 3L Free Speech & Censorship in Cyberspace - Richard Spinello
Free speech vs. the control of content in cyberspace. Spinello calls this “arguably the most contentious moral problem of the nascent Information Age. He asks “what is the appropriate scope of free expression for organizations and individuals and by what methods can that speech be protected?”
What did Miller v. California tell us?
The Supreme Court ruled that obscene speech is not protected speech under the Constitutional.
The court established three conditions:
- it depicts sexual (or excretory) acts explicitly prohibited by state law.
- it appeals to prurient interests as judged by a reasonable person using community standards.
- it has no serious literary, artistic, social, political, or scientific value.
Ginsberg Speech.
What is the Communications Decency Act? (CDA)
The CDA was the first attempt by Congress to regulate internet pornography.
Passed by Congress to:
1. regulate both indecency (when available to children) and obscenity in cyberspace.
2. operators of Internet services were not to be construed as publishers of the material (and as such, were not legally liable for the words of third parties who use their services).
Children’s Online Protection Act (COPA)
Successor to the CDA. This was challenged by the ACLU; they argued that, while COPA was doing the right thing in keeping pornography out of sight of minors, it was also keeping it from adults; adults who are constitutionally protected.
Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA)
What were libraries and schools mandated to do? They were mandated to put filters on their computers to block Internet pornography. This time, the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, ruled that “limitations imposed by CIPA on Internet access were equivalent to limitations on access to books that librarians choose to acquire or not acquire”.
According to Jonathan Katz:
Parents who thoughtlessly ban access to online culture or lyrics they don’t like or understand, or who exaggerate and distort the dangers of violent and pornographic imagery, are acting out of arrogance, imposing brute authority.
What are some of the moral issues that emerge when we use blocking/filtering software?
- unreliability - a lack of precision. There is simply no perfect or foolproof way to filter out obscene material.
- over-blocking: when a program filters out sites that do not fit a particular category.
- under-blocking: the failure to find objectionable material and, as such, leaving it available.
- can be used to enforce a social/political agenda.
- the level at which these controls are being implemented.
What are some criteria that might constitute “responsible use” of automated controls?
- These controls should be strictly voluntary.
- There should be an adequate transparency level in blocking software or rating schemes.
- Automated controls should not be adopted as a high level centralized solution to harmful speech.
The American Library Association’s (ALA) Bill of Rights says “a person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background or views.”
The “Nuremberg Files” Neil Horse-Lee maintained an anti-abortion website.
What is chained-remailing?
According to Spinello: it is a way to send an anonymous communication by encrypting a message and then routing that message through a series of anonymous remailers. A user can rest assured that their message will remain anonymous and confidential.
The process is usually effective because none of the remailers has the key to read the message. Neither the recipient nor any remailers (except the first) in the chain can identify the sender; the recipient cannot connect the sender to the message unless every single remailer in the chain cooperates.
“The Delete Squad” - Jeffrey Rosen”
Refers to a group of young tech executives who met at Stanford Law School in April of 2012 to discuss - and perhaps help decide - the future of online free speech.
