Dark patterns are user interfaces that benefit an online service by leading users into making decisions they might not otherwise make. Some dark patterns deceive users while others covertly manipulate or coerce them into choices that are not in their best interests.
Dark Patterns: Past, Present, and Future. The evolution of tricky user interfaces. Read More
There are very few legal limits on what governments can do with even the most personal data once they have it.
Who Has Access to Your Smartphone Data? Read More
Human civilization does not tend to agree among issues such as fairness, equality, safety, security, privacy, and self-determination (for example). With COVID-19, economical well-being, health care, climate change, and other issues (some of which are considered here), if we cannot agree on the basic goals, we will never reach whatever they might have been—especially if the goals appear to compete with each other.
A Holistic View of Future Risks Read More
eBook surveillance is potentially part of a larger trend in which data collection that would be illegal if performed by a state actor has become a common business practice of a private actor.
Reading in the Panopticon: Your Kindle May Be Spying on You, But You Can’t Be Sure Read More
This article [takes] two basic approaches to evaluating the ethics of stockpiling zero-day exploits.
The Ethics of Zero-Day Exploits: The NSA Meets the Trolley Car Read More
Almost certainly, tech companies attempt to develop ways in which participants remain engaged, although the degree to which such mechanisms are harmful remain hotly contested.
Excessive Use of Technology: Can Tech Providers be the Culprits? Read More
Will cyber warranties better align incentives in the market for information security products? Or are they marketing tricks riddled with coverage exclusions hidden in the fine print of the terms and conditions?
Cyber Warranties: Market Fix or Marketing Trick? Read More
Current learning analytics practices may be inconsistent with higher education institutions’ fiduciary responsibilities. Institutional interests and student interests are not identical, and we should not assume they align.
The Temptation of Data-Enabled Surveillance Read More
The boundaries of privacy are in dispute, and its future is in doubt. Citizens, politicians and business leaders are asking if societies are making the wisest tradeoffs. The Times is embarking on this monthslong project to explore the technology and where it’s taking us, and to convene debate about how it can best help realize human potential.
The Privacy Project Read More
Communications of the ACM, March 2019
By Ofir Turel
“For many years we have emphasized the positive aspects of computing technologies because we believed in their contribution to humanity. Nevertheless, there is a growing body of evidence in support of a technology duality view. That is to say, we have started realizing and quantifying the notion that many of the technologies we develop can also be harmful, especially when used excessively.”
Potential ‘Dark Sides’ of Leisure Technology Use in Youth Read More
Communications of the ACM, July 2019
By Susan J. Winter
“This column uses the case of smart cities to illustrate the ethical dilemmas created by an otherwise innocuous-seeming issue. … Cui bono, which means “who benefits?” … Cui bono? In principle, everyone. But a closer look at the smart cities rhetoric shows the benefits focused on a subset of the total.”
MIT Technology Review, February 21, 2019
By Sean Dorrance Kelly
“The capacity for genuine creativity, the kind of creativity that updates our understanding of the nature of being, is at the ground of what it is to be human.”
A philosopher argues that an AI can’t be an artist Read More