[Air-L] a question about privacy protection and copyright in Internet research

Sat May 7 07:43:28 PDT 2011

Jeremy,

I appreciate the thoughtful discussion of public/private and the role of
Facebook in muddying those waters.

One point of clarification. The assumption that archive.org, LoC or other
organizations collecting "public" information rests on the webmaster's
decision to include a robots.txt file at the top level of a domain. (See
http://www.robotstxt.org/ for more.)

Facebook uses a robots.txt file that prohibits most indexing by the Internet
Archive, so the litmus test of whether an archived resource is public
becomes a bit more complicated. The Internet Archive also honors takedown
notices and requests for copyright by following the Oakland Archive Policy
-- 
http://www2.sims.berkeley.edu/research/conferences/aps/removal-policy.html...
you'll find a number of scenarios that prohibit archives from
collecting
certain types of information in the Oakland Policy matrix.

I am interested in hearing more perspectives on the publicness of FB data,
particularly the data that can be used to identify a human subject. While
this may not relate directly to my research now, it certainly will affect
the ways in which "human" subjects are treated by IRBs.

Thanks,
William

-------------------------
William J. Moner || PhD Student, Media Studies, University of Texas at
Austin
Co-Coordinating Editor, Flow Media Journal || http://flowtv.org
wjmoner at utexas.edu || 512.820.9741 || @williamj

On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 8:54 AM, jeremy hunsinger <jhuns at vt.edu> wrote:

> I would not assume anything on facebook is public or publicized other than
> things you can see on the open internet without login and even then those
> are copyrighted and as i recall have a license on top of the copyright
> limiting their public reception, but i could be wrong about the license as i
> can't find it now.   Your ability to use that will be limited by the terms
> of service of facebook that you agree to (and their api terms are the most
> flexible).  If you need permissions beyond those provided, then i think you
> need to ask facebook.
>
> what i assume would be public if anything from facebook is anything that
> you would find preserved in a system like archive.org, the library of
> congress of the u.s. or the british library.
>
>
>
>
> On May 6, 2011, at 9:44 AM, Adi Kuntsman wrote:
>
> > .. so, for example, in case of a 'public' FB group (loging required but
> noone needs to accept/friend you to be able to see it) - is it public or
> private and who, if any, should be asked for permission to research and
> cite?
> >
> > thanks for advice
> >
> > --
> >
> > Dr. Adi Kuntsman
> > Simon Research Fellow
> > Department of Anthropology/
> > Research Institute for Cosmopolitan Cultures
> > The University of Manchester
> > Second Floor, Arthur Lewis Building, room 2.007
> > Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
> > http://adi.kuntsman.googlepages.com
> > From: jeremy hunsinger <jhuns at vt.edu>
> > To: aoir list <air-l at aoir.org>
> > Sent: Friday, May 6, 2011 2:32 PM
> > Subject: Re: [Air-L] a question about privacy protection and copyright in
> Internet research
> >
> > yes, check login status, i agree.    facebook is an odd case because of
> their terms of service.    but if you cannot see something because you are
> not logged in, then you have questions of privacy much more significantly.
>  most of my research currently deals with things that are a. no login
> (published blogs) or b. login required but company releases the necessary
> rights to material that may be openly viewed  and anyone can login and
> openly view(second life).  there are other issues in both because both can
> have private channels and sections, but i don't research those.
> > On May 6, 2011, at 9:16 AM, Radhika Gajjala wrote:
> >
> > > good points
> > >
> > > also if you are seeing something because you are a friend or in a
> circle
> > > -that reqd the user to "accept" you - it may be considered pvt
> > >
> > > (as in FB)
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Jeremy Hunsinger
> > Center for Digital Discourse and Culture
> > Virginia Tech
> >
> > http://www.stswiki.org/  sts wiki
> > http://transdisciplinarystudies.tmttlt.com/  Transdisciplinary
> Studies:the book series
> >
> > I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how
> to do it.
> > -Pablo Picasso
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> >
>
> Jeremy Hunsinger
> Center for Digital Discourse and Culture
> Virginia Tech
>
>
>
> Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
> -Jules de Gaultier
>
> () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail
> /\ - against microsoft attachments
>
>
>
>
>
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