Month: March 2018

Net Neutrality is the what keeps the internet neutral. By that, I mean it implies that all internet data should be accessible to all despite the internet service provider they are paying. Net Neutrality keeps internet service providers from favoring certain websites and purposely slowing down or blocking others. It also could mean that companies could block you from using VPN’s or certain wifi routers. Net Neutrality is in the best interest of web based companies who depend on their customers being able to access their websites. It is not in the best interest of internet providers who could potentially strike deals with certain companies or get more money from customers by charging them for access to certain things.

People argue that Net Neutrality hinders innovation. Without net neutrality big companies can take total control over your internet use. They can decide what websites you can and cannot access and what websites load faster than others. They can charge users for higher speeds and better experiences. They can make it impossible for new competitors to have a fair shot at gaining exposure to new customers. They can stifle others opinions by blocking opposing views and content. Net Neutrality makes for an open internet for all ensuring fair competition for all companies new and old. People who are argue against Net Neutrality believe it is “another political tool used to reward select groups at the expense of others” according to Being Libertarian.com. They argue that without Net Neutrality, companies like Time Warner, Comcast, and AT&T could charge the larger companies (like Netflix, Google, etc.) more than smaller companies because they use more of the internet services. These people believe that Net Neutrality is more government regulations in a place where government regulations do not need to be.

I think both arguments have valid points, but neither really have answers to each other concerns. Both sides argue that Net neutrality or no net neutrality is bad for smaller businesses. One side thinks that giving big businesses control will leave the little business in the dust. The other side argues that if big businesses had control they could charge the larger companies more money than smaller companies because they use more of the services and broadband. Both sides of the argument think they can fix the same problem by doing exactly opposite things. This topic is incredibly hard to take a stance on, because I am not sure that either side is entirely right and with the political climate right now its either pick a side and support it fully, or your opinion doesn’t matter. If both sides realized they are fighting the same battles, maybe they could come together to solve those problems, but instead both sides think they are right, and only they are right, and the other side’s opinions are invalid and wrong.

I agree that maybe companies that use more bandwidth should have to pay more for their services. The analogy from Being Libertarian.com about wear and tear on roads between cars and 18-wheelers really puts the problem into perspective. But I also agree that maybe some regulations do need to be put into place in order to prevent the other bad things that no Net Neutrality could create. So I guess you could say I am in favor of SOME net neutrality, but with limits on regulation.

If I had to implement Net Neutrality, I would focus on ensuring fair competition exists for all companies. If you use more resources, you should pay more. That is a valid argument from the no Net Neutrality side. But I also do not think companies should be able to limit the customer’s experience, or exclude the option for new companies to compete. I also agree with the no Net Neutrality side that too many regulations can be bad, and complicate things. I think the regulations should be more about ensuring fair competition (already an important staple of our economy) and ensuring that customers have their basic rights (freedom to browse the internet).

Corporate personhood is the idea that a corporation is treated as a person, or can act as a person. It is a complicated idea, and I agree and disagree with certain parts of this idea. I think we should think of a corporation as the people who work for it, instead of as physical thing or individual. The problem with this idea, is that when a company is celebrated, everyone wants to be recognized, but when a company is punished, no one wants to take responsibility, so the finger is pointed at “the company” instead of individual people who work at the company. No one person wants to take responsibility of things like property, taxes, and expenses, so this is all put on “the company.” There are responsibilities that “the company” has that I understand a single person should not be responsible for. It does not make sense for the physical property of “the company” to be tied to a single human. However, since “the company” is given these human-like abilities people start to think of it as a real person, and we start to give this person rights it really does not need. One particular right I do not think is fair is the ability for a company to back a presidential candidate. That means that “the company” is speaking for all the people who work there. The money that those people worked hard for is being used to back a candidate that they may not actually support. The beliefs of a few chairmen should not be put on the people of the entire company. If those people want to give their own money, great! But money should not be given under the name of an entire corporation if the entire corporation does not necessarily agree.

I think what sony did with the rootkit was unethical. They should not have the ability to download software to someone’s computer without that person knowing it is being installed. Upon reading more about this software, I discovered it continuously uses CPU on the computer, and it opened up malware vulnerabilities. Sony installed software, made the computers vulnerable, and took up precious space, all without the user’s knowledge or approval. In one of the articles about Sony, after discussing what one of the presidents at Sony said, they said “Even Sony’s apology…” This seems wrong to me because the company is not what it is apologizing. It is the people within the company who made this decision that should be doing the apologizing.  Sony paid money in lawsuits for their actions, but were the individuals that started the problem punished? “The company” was punished, but the individuals responsible did not have to be held accountable. This allows people to hide behind the “person” that is “the company.”

If corporations are afforded rights like a person, they should also be ethical and moral. That means the real people behind “the company’s” choices need to be ethical and moral. “The company” cannot make decisions or do things. The people behind “the company” should not be able to hide behind “the company’s” name to make decisions they might not make as an individual. People should be held responsible for their actions, not an invisible “person” that goes by the name of the company. In the case of Sony, people made the decision to install this software on people’s computers, they made the decision to cloak what they were doing, they made the decision to create the software in the first place. People made these decisions and should be responsible. When you blame something on a company, the individuals who made the decisions get away free of blame, and free of discipline.

The title of this blog post is a quote from the former chief scientist at Amazon.com, Andreas Weigend. He was discussing the “arms race to hire statisticians.” As a math major, I felt particularly drawn to this statement, but putting my personal bias aside, it is an interesting point. Math has never been a particularly “sexy” thing to study. The ability to analyze all of the data companies are collecting is a high demand skill right now, and is definitely making math a more attractive major, but the question is whether or not this new “sexiness” is ethical or not. 

The amount of data companies are collecting has become a little absurd. This is where they walk the line of ethical or not. When a company responsibly collects data that I have given them permission to collect in order to better my experience using a particular app or website, I believe it is an ethical data collection. When uber provides me with a list of frequently ubered locations to give me the ability to fast track my uber ordering experience, it is a responsible data collection. I am willingly giving them that data by using the app, I understand the use case of this feature, and I agree that it is bettering my experience. If a user willingly sends data to an individual company, I do not see a problem with that company using that data in order to better the user experience. The two most unethical parts of this problem, in my opinion, are when the data is used for reasons that do not better the user experience, and when data is collected in a way you do not give them permission to access.

If I do not give permission for a company to use my location or my camera or my microphone, then they should not be able to use them. Period. If I do give them permission to use any of these features, then they should be used responsibly, and I should be notified of any reasons these features will be used. If a company tells me they want access to my microphone in order to record a video, I expect that is the only reason they want it. Unless a company is straightforward in telling me that they are going to use a feature to collect extra data, like what I am talking to my friends about, then it should not be allowed. That is spying, and makes me uncomfortable. This is often used in online advertisements, and it is startling when it is. The other day a friend sent me a snapchat of a suitcase. I opened instagram and there was an ad for that same suitcase. Could this have been a coincidence? Maybe. Was it super creepy? Yes. I do not know how instagram got this data in order to show me this ad, but it felt invasive.

Any of MY data collected by a company, should be used to better MY experience. In the article “The Convenience-Surveillance Tradeoff” they discuss a survey where they asked adults about certain situations and if they are comfortable with data about them being collected and stored in these situations. One of the situations was a “smart-thermostat” company, that collected data about someone’s movement around their house and “offer no-cost remote programability in exchange for this data.” In this situation the company would need to be straight forward with buyers of this product about what their data is being used for. If data is being used to help the user save money on heating bills or alter temperature in certain rooms based on where the user is, then great! However personally, I would be creeped out if suddenly I had an influx of ads for kitchen things because I spent a lot of time in the kitchen, and this use of my data was not made clear to me. If someone willingly gives data with the understanding that it will be used in a certain way, great! But if I am being sold as data with no knowledge of what MY data is going towards, that is bad.

I find some online advertising invasive, and some tolerable. Once again, I think this is subject to whether I am aware of my data being used, and if I am aware of what data is being used for what. A bad example is the snapchat-suitcase example given above. A good use of my data for online advertising, is when I am looking for presents. An example is I was looking for a men’s bathrobe for a present, so I did a lot of googling and searching on different sites. It was helpful to me and a better experience for me, that google then gave me ads for men’s bathrobes, because it helped my search. This is an example of me willingly giving up information about myself to a company (telling google i am interested in a bathrobe), and them using it in their own context (not within another app or website), to better my experience as a user (by showing me better deals on something they knew I was looking for).