Abstract
In this commentary I argue that the ethical issues surrounding online data privacy are not unique and instead involve timeless features of transactions in the market. I explain how we can turn to what justifies the market most generally in analysing such issues. The use of any truncated account of the justification of the market, I argue, will mislead us into coming to either the wrong conclusions or to no conclusions about the ethics of online data privacy.
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Notes
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To be more specific, in most cases, the ISPs cannot see a user’s PII (personally identifiable information), a user’s session identity and the data they are requesting or receiving from websites. This is because virtually all sites use SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption. What ISPs can see are the sites users visit. This is because the SSL certificate includes the site’s SSL registration (like Amazon, Facebook, Gmail etc.). It is in this way that they can collect data about what sites you visit at specific times of the day and sell that data to third parties.
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Cicero, Selected Works, ed. Michael Grant (London: Penguin 1971), 177–180.
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Joseph Heath has recently identified some of the norms that underlie appropriate market behavior. He describes four: (a) do not exploit market failure, (b) do not cheat, (c) do not game the rules, and (d) refuse to lobby against regulations designed to correct market imperfections (Heath 2014, 113). This is one step closer, but the generality of the justification I am seeking also offers an explanation of why following these norms brings value.
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Baker, J. (2017). Online Data Privacy and the Justification of the Market. In: Taddeo, M., Floridi, L. (eds) The Responsibilities of Online Service Providers. Law, Governance and Technology Series, vol 31. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47852-4_19
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