[Air-l] AOL and research ethics

[Barry Wellman]

Besides legal stuff, it's clear that AOL didn't follow what's SOP
procedures for preserving respondent, privacy in the social sciences. They
thought they were by not directly releasing user-holder's name and
accounts, but were so eager to be helpful that they didn't sanitize the
data well.
Always a concern, but one routinely dealt.
OK, I gotta stop myself or else I go on another rant about computer
scientists not knowing any social science -- in this case methods.
 Barry
 _____________________________________________________________________

  Barry Wellman         Professor of Sociology        NetLab Director
  wellman at chass.utoronto.ca  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman

  Centre for Urban & Community Studies          University of Toronto
  455 Spadina Avenue    Toronto Canada M5S 2G8    fax:+1-416-978-7162

      You're invited to visit & contribute to the new version of
 "Updating Cybertimes: It's Time to Bring Our Culture into Cyberspace"
             http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
 _____________________________________________________________________