[Air-L] Terms of Service not legally binding?

[Jeremy Foote]

Hi Charles,

You are probably referring to Christian Sandvig et al.'s case (
https://www.aclu.org/news/judge-allows-aclu-case-challenging-law-preventing-studies-big-data-discrimination-proceed
)

IANAL, but as far as I can tell the recent ruling allowed the case to go
forward but it hasn't been decided yet.

Best,
Jeremy

On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 1:51 AM, Charles M. Ess <c.m.ess at media.uio.no> wrote:

> Dear colleagues,
>
> With apologies for spamming the lists - on behalf of both a student
> project and our development of further refinements in internet research
> ethics I'd like to ask the following.
>
> I've heard somewhere recently that a U.S. court has ruled that Terms of
> Service are not necessarily legally binding.
> If anyone can forward more exact details of the ruling, I'd be very
> grateful indeed.
>
> Why? There is considerable discussion regarding the creation of fake
> profiles as part of research into social media, algorithms, etc.  I have
> the impression that this has become common practice, and this ruling may
> give some direct and/or indirect support to arguments for such a practice.
> (With important caveats, generally a good thing in my view, FWIW.)
>
> At the same time, however, Norwegian law and thereby research ethics, as a
> start, tend to be considerably more strict than the U.S. (and even, in some
> instances, the E.U.).  I would like to figure out the differences and
> resulting nuances in the implications for research ethics - both for the
> sake of the general example and for an MA student project that I have the
> pleasure of supervising.
>
> Many thanks in advance for any tips and suggestions.
>
> All best,
> - charles ess
>
> --
> Professor in Media Studies
> Department of Media and Communication
> University of Oslo
> <http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/people/aca/charlees/index.html>
>
> Postboks 1093
> Blindern 0317
> Oslo, Norway
> c.m.ess at media.uio.no
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