Privacy and Morality Addressed in Technology News

Jun 22nd, 2009 • Posted in: News

Job seekers in Montana city asked to provide passwords for blogs and social-media accounts; recording piracy case concludes with whopping damages assessment; congressional testimony reveals that very few Web users opt out of privacy collection; a researcher is writing computer code for a robot code of ethics

VARIOUS DATELINES
Some intriguing junctions of morality and technology were featured in press reports last week. Among them:

• Job seekers applying for a local government job in Bozeman, Montana, are being asked to list all potentially compromising aspects of their Web presence, such as chat rooms, blogs, Facebook, and MySpace accounts, and provide the passwords they use to access the sites, reports U.S. News & World Report. Billings TV station KTVQ reports that a city attorney defended the demands, saying the background check does not extend to items protected under state constitutional privacy guarantees.
• The only case to go to trial concerning the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) series of anti-piracy suits ended with a whopping $1.92 million verdict against a Minnesota woman who illegally up- and downloaded songs. Jammie Thomas-Rasset was found liable for infringement, reports Wired. The RIAA is winding down its campaign of lawsuits, notes the magazine, and is now focusing on lobbying ISPs to disconnect file sharers. All the other cases brought by the RIAA were settled out of court for an average settlement of about $3,500.
• Testimony during congressional hearings on a proposed U.S. privacy law revealed that a very low percentage of search engine users opt out of data-collection systems. A privacy executive from Yahoo admitted that the number is probably “far lower than 1 percent.” A Google representative said she did not know the percentage. Forbes reports that the issue is at the center of a debate over whether advertisers and search engines should use an opt-in or opt-out system to protect surfers’ online privacy.
• A U.S. researcher has begun writing computer code that will help robotic warriors follow an ethics code in the heat of battle, reports Popular Science. Ron Arkin, a robotics engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology, says that in some cases programming drone warriors is fairly straightforward, such as an actual instance in a 2006 battle in Afghanistan where an unmanned, armed vehicle was programmed not to fire on subjects in a cemetery, a violation of existing rules of war. But the complexity of human emotions and ethics makes programming difficult when situations are less clear cut. One point in the robot’s favor, notes the Popular Science report: They don’t seek revenge.

Sources: U.S. News & World Report, June 19 — KTVQ, Billings, Montana — Wired, June 18 — Forbes, June 18 — Popular Science, June 18.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 8 — Related Newsline story, May 25 — Related Newsline story, May 18 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 27 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 9.

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One Response »

1. Ethics Newsline® » News » Social Networking Continues to Push Ethical Envelope on June 29th, 2009 at 6:50 pm:

   [...] more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 22 — Related Newsline story, June 8 — Related Newsline story, May 25 [...]

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