[Air-l] ethics - aol data

[Beth Kolko]

Actually, AOL did expose their customers. The New York Times managed to track a specific AOL user based on her history of search queries (since all searches were tied to the same "anonymous" userid). The NYT ran a front page story about their interview with her. So much for anonymous browsing. 

A few people are no longer employed at AOL as a result. But that doesn't solve the problem of how non-anonymous most of our technology usage is. And yes, I am assuming that lack of anonymity is a problem. That's a much longer discussion, though.

Best,
Beth


Aoir - ListServe <aoir at tcfir.org> wrote: Charles,

Having not seen the information release by AOL, I can only speculate in
generalities.

Behavioral research has always faced this issue. The rule is fairly simple.
If the data reveals the identity of the subjects and exposes their privacy
or subjects them to some harm real or imagined then disclosure is unethical.

If their identity is masked and the data is void of information that could
reveal their identity by reasonable guessing, then the data and the analysis
is open for publication.

Science is about openness, where possible. It is about allowing inference to
be drawn from raw data. It is about conclusions from that data being
challenged. If AOL did not expose their customers, then in my book the data
should be used.

I once did a study on time perception in manic phase, bi-polars with
complete personal work-ups and reported all the data (nothing personal). On
the other hand, I gave IQ tests to an entire elementary school and reported
only trends and no scores. I felt it was possible for the teachers to make
educated guesses.

This underscores a need to discuss and debate all the issues and vocabulary
of Internet Studies. We are a field in the making with fairly divergent
points of view. If we don't know how to illuminate these issues then our
more traditional colleagues will discount us.

Reid Cornwell



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