Ethics and Policy Assignment
Write one or two (note the change here!!!) clear, comprehensive, concise, correct, creative, essays. Aim to write 4 pages, total. Eligible topics are as follows. Number your essays such that they correspond to the chosen prompt.
- Danaher et al. defend the quantified relationship (QR), but their discussion of privacy is brief. Rubel and Jones discuss privacy in greater depth, but in the context of student learning analytics.
Present: Using Rubel and Jones, what do you see as the specific privacy-related threats of QR apps?
Note: Please focus on apps that do not violate consent between partners, and make sure that your discussion goes beyond the brief discussion of privacy in Danaher et al.
Ethics and Policy Assignment
- Object: A defender of QR apps might hold that there is no reason to single them out on privacy grounds: they are no different from other self-tracking apps, and thus present no distinctive privacy-related concerns. Use your above analysis to construct the strongest objection that you can to this thought.
- Reply: Respond to the above objection on behalf of the defender of QR apps.
- Evaluate: Either
- Explain why the objection is not defeated by the reply, or
- Explain why the objection is defeated by the reply.
- Expand: I assume that some apps that compromise privacy are nevertheless permissible. Afterall, people are free to engage in risky activities (within certain bounds). I also assume some apps should not exist. Afterall, there are limits to our freedom. Either:
Ethics and Policy Assignment
Identify one type of self-tracking feature that should not be allowed for privacy-related reasons, and-building on the discussion above-explain why it should not be allowed.² Or,
- Explain why one of my assumptions is false.
- We considered two accounts of manipulation: the hidden influence view and the careless influence view.
- Present: Which account do you think is the more plausible of the two? Why?
- Object: We have considered many cases in our exploration of manipulation. Using one of those or one that you came up with on your own, concoct a problem case for the view you sided with above. That is, present a case that either
- Seems to be a case of online manipulation but the account doesn’t consider it one, or
- Seems to not be a case of manipulation but the account considers it one.
Respond: What is the best response that the proponent of the view can make in reply to your challenge?
Ethics and Policy Assignment
- Evaluate: Either
- Explain why the objection is not defeated by the reply, or ii. Explain why the objection is defeated by the reply.
- Expand A recent paper in the University of Illinois Law Review states that
Online manipulation uses the consumer’s own behavioral data against her to circumvent her rational decision-making process. In this way, online manipulation is more threatening to consumers than the existing online behavioral advertising, in which our behavioral data may be used to decide the types of ads we see or offers we receive, but does not undermine our ability to assess those ads and offers. That is the essential difference between scattershot manipulation and the type of personalized manipulation possible in the Digital Age.
Of course, regulating all online manipulation would be impractical from a political perspective and unnecessary from a consumer protection perspective. […] [A]ny attempt to regulate online manipulation should focus on the extreme personalization that makes online manipulation so troubling. APA.