As the possible approval of the Google Book Search Settlement Agreement looms, various advocacy groups have brought attention to the fact that Google might gain even greater ability to monitor the books you browse, the pages you read, and even the highlights and marginal notes you make on digital copies of books.
Category: Information Ethics
The Public Index: A Website to Study and Discuss the Google Book Search Settlement
New York Law School professor (and fellow Yale ISP alum), James Grimmelmann, has launched The Public Index: A Website to Study and Discuss the Google Book Search Settlement. From his announcement: The Public-Interest Book Search Initiative at New York Law…
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Amazon Removes Books from Kindle, Exposing the True Concern: They’re Watching, They’re in Control
Amazon has remotely removed copies of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm from user’s Kindles while crediting their accounts, indicating that the books were improperly added to the Kindle store by a company that did not have the rights to them. More than just an eBook reader, the Kindle represents the latest cog in Amazon's large-scale infrastructure of intellectual surveillance.
The Ethicist Gets it Right with “A Facebook Teaching Moment”
I'm a big fan of the New York Times Magazine's weekly column, The Ethicist. I'm not a big fan, however, of the column's namesake, Randy Cohen. He is often much too consequentialist for my liking, too simplistic is his ethical…
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Debrief: Computer Ethics/Philosophical Enquiry 2009 in Corfu, Greece
I've returned from the 8th International Conference of Computer Ethics: Philosophical Enquiry in Corfu, Greece, where I presented an early draft of a paper based on my critique of the “Taste, Ties, and Time” Facebook data release. The paper was…
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Draft Paper: “But the Data is Already Public”: On the Ethics of Research in Facebook
[UPDATE: The final paper has been published in Ethics and Information Technology]Next week I will be attending the 8th International Conference of Computer Ethics: Philosophical Enquiry in Corfu, Greece, where I will be presenting an early draft of a paper…
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West Bend Library Controversy Continues to Escalate
The West Bend library controversy continues to escalate....with calls for book burning and growing national exposure (and, unfortunately, ridicule). Here's the (abridged) history and escalation: [Updated on 6/19/09 to include ABC News coverage, and 7/22/09 to include CNN] 02/15/2009: Ginny…
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West Bend Library Board Rejects Restrictions
The West Bend Community Memorial Library board held a public meeting this evening to consider the request from the "West Bend Citizens for Safe Libraries" that the library remove books they consider to be "obscene" or "child pornography" from a…
Registration Still Open for “Ethics of Information Organization” conference
Just a quick note that registration is still open for the “The Ethics of Information Organization“ conference hosted by the Center for Information Policy Research and the School of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Ethics of Information Organization…
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Stutzman: Google exposes Book Search patron records
I've written frequently about how the shift from accessing information in offline spaces to online spaces has particular privacy implications. For example, strikingly different privacy norms and expectations emerge when comparing information-seeking activities in libraries vs. bookstores vs. Google Book…
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