Michael Zimmer, PhD, is a digital privacy and data ethics scholar at Marquette University
Understanding how ethical values are embedded in technology, and working to ensure values are considered in technology design practices.
We are frequently confronted with examples and rhetoric that people's stated privacy preferences don't match up with what they do in practice. For example, see Adam Thierer's recent post, where he provides thoughts from Nick Carr, Bruce Schneier, and Jim…
Read More Privacy Trade-offs: Do People Not Care, or Simply Not Know?
I've written a lot here about the need for companies to engage in value-conscious design of their products and services. This, admittedly, is no simple task. Ever since spending a few weeks thinking about this topic a few years ago,…
Fred Stutzman has an excellent post on the recent Facebook terms of service kerfuffle, including his prescription for what Facebook must do to properly address user rights: First, Facebook should place a reasonable lifespan (eighteen to twenty-four months) on information…
Read More Stutzman’s Suggestions for Facebook to Properly Address User Rights
Amid increasing criticism regarding modifications to its terms of service, Facebook has withdrawn the changes it implemented on February 4, 2009. Mark Zuckerberg posted a message explaining this move, and FB also released a set of "Facebook Bill of Rights…
Now that the NY Times has picked up the story about Facebook changing their terms of service, effecitvely removing mention that the license users grant Facebook to use their content expires if users remove said content, Facebook has issued a…
Read More On Facebook, People Own and Control Their Information (Except When Facebook Does)
The terms of service (TOS) for most websites featuring user-generated content share a common language regarding the license granted to those sites when a user uploads content. YouTube, MySpace, and Flickr, for example, all state (with some wordsmithing) that when…
Read More Facebook’s New Content License Extends Beyond Closure of Account
Buried within this NY Times post about how some Clinton administration verterans on Obama's transition team are surprised at some of the changes within the White House is an interesting discussion about how the reliance on real-time video links between…
Read More Even in the Situation Room, the Medium is the Message
Over the past few days I have been attending the 9th annual conference of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) in Copenhagen. This year's conference is "Internet Research 9.0 - Rethinking Community, Rethinking Place", and it has been expertly organized…
I'm spending the next few days at the 72nd Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archivists in San Francisco, and I'm looking forward to learning more about many of the ethical and policy issues confronted by archivists in an…
Read More Values in Design: Defining a Privacy-Aware Model for Web Access to Archives
Similar to my recent probes and interactions with the designers of the social networking site Moli, I recently enjoyed the opportunity to discuss privacy-related design issues with the product manager for Microsoft's HealthVault platform. HealthVault is Microsoft's attempt to provide…
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