[Air-l] ethics - aol data

[Jeremy Hunsinger]

On Aug 29, 2006, at 2:58 PM, burkx006 at umn.edu wrote:

> On Aug 29 2006, Jeremy Hunsinger wrote:
>
>>> I'm a little unclear as to Jeremy's referent here; specifically,  
>>> what
>>> "property" he is talking about. If he is talking about the data, I
>>> would
>>> rather vigorously oppose characterizing it in that manner. If he is
>>> talking
>>> about the hardware/software on which the data resides, then we  
>>> need to
>>> distinguish between ownership/control/use of the "property"
>>> carrying the
>>> information, and ownership/control/use of the information itself.
>>> Google
>>> and AOL may have a proprietary interest in one, but not necessarily
>>> the
>>> other.
>>>
> [snippage]
>>
>> here i was talking about the data, which they collected and
>> redistributed and the search logs specifically.  I think that data is
>> pretty much their property.
>
> Property is a word that has to be used very carefully -- I'm not  
> sure that
> the data can be called their property in any formal sense. It  
> cannot (with
> a couple of caveats) be the subject matter of patent or copyright.

The collection a whole or in part as held as a whole in a database  
could be copyrighted i thought.   Wasn't that a law that passed a few  
years ago that we all protested, but it was pretty much passed  
anyway?   I may be mistaken here, but I seem to recall that passing.

here are what i thought they could do more or less:  Control the  
data, Benefit or license access to the data, transfer or sell the  
data, exclude others from the data.  those are all traditional  
property rights... i think...  I am no lawyer, but if you have the  
rights... within some framework of the law, then it looks like  
property to me.

> It might
> be the subject of trade secrecy if it gives AOL or Google a "business
> advantage" but that isn't really a property right -- it just prevents
> misappropriation of the data.

yes, i was not thinking trade secrecy, that would be an interesting  
argument, but, I'm not sure it what would be a secret there, unless  
it is the whole of the collection of data, because google like aol  
has given access to parts of their data before.
>
> Maybe what you are asserting is that AOL or Google has a the  
> ability to
> keep the data physically secluded from access. This is essentially  
> the same
> issue as in the "trespass to computers" cases. But that is subject  
> to a
> bunch of outside claims (by the users, by the state) and doesn't  
> confer any
> actual rights in the data. For example, I don't think that AOL has any
> ability to control use of the data they accidentally released.

it wasn't an accidental release, was it.  I thought it was released  
under license to researchers and then people re-released it.
>
>> it is like all computer logs in my
>> mind.  do the users of a webserver own the logs or does the owner of
>> the webserver?
>
> Well, ownership and control of the log (a compilation) is a different
> question than ownership and control of the indivdual data elements.

yes, but they released it as a whole, as a part of a larger whole.    
it was one representation of the  larger log.  that was my  
understanding of the data.  it was a random sample of the larger log  
meant to represent the larger log for research.

>
>> in the case of medical or dental records, you clearly
>> have a claim to your personal data, but... in the case of search
>> logs, i don't think the user of a system really has much of a claim.
>
> I am speaking at IASTED Law/Tech on a version such claims in the  
> context of
> "fantasy sports" data representations:
> http://www.iasted.org/conferences/keynote-545.html

there was just another lawsuit on that and baseball wasn't there?   
that is a bit different I think because arguably all of the data that  
you need to play fantasy sports can be found in your daily  
newspaper.   I'd be interesting to see what parallels could be made  
between search data logs and publicly available data.   perhaps...  
what we need is a completely transparent search engine.
>

-snip-

> -- 
> Dan L. Burk
> Oppenheimer, Wolff & Donnelly Professor
> University of Minnesota Law School
> 229 19th Avenue South
> Minneapolis, MN  55455
> **********************************
> voice: 612-626-8726
> fax: 612-625-2011
> bits: burkx006 at umn.edu
>
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jeremy hunsinger
Assistant Professor
Pratt Institute
www.cddc.vt.edu
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