Chapter 08 Q/A for Students

1. Recognize the main ethical, social, and political issues raised by e-commerce.

The major issues raised by e-commerce can be loosely categorized into four major dimensions:

• Information rights—What rights do individuals have to control their own personal information when
Internet technologies make information collection so pervasive (wide spreading) and efficient?
• Property rights—How can traditional intellectual property rights be enforced when perfect copies of
protected works can be made and easily distributed worldwide via the Internet?
• Governance—Should the Internet and e-commerce be subject to public laws? If so, what law-making
bodies have jurisdiction—state, federal, and/or international?
• Public safety and welfare—What efforts should be undertaken to ensure equitable (fair) access to the
Internet and e-commerce channels? Do certain online content and activities pose a threat to public
safety and welfare?

2. What are the basic principles of ethics?

There are four basic principles that all ethical schools of thought share:

Responsibility means that as free moral agents, individuals, organizations, and societies are responsible
for the actions they take.
Accountability means that individuals, organizations, and societies should be held accountable to others
for the consequences of their actions.
Liability is a feature of political systems in which a body of law is in place that permits individuals to
recover the damages done to them by other actors, systems, or organizations. It extends the concepts of
responsibility and accountability to the area of law
Due process is a feature of law-governed societies and refers to a process in which laws are known and
understood, and there is an ability to appeal to higher authorities to ensure that the laws have been
correctly applied.

3. What is DMCA?

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 was the first major effort to adjust the copyright
laws to the Internet age. This legislation was the result of a confrontation between the major copyright
holders in the United States (publishing, sheet music, record label, and commercial film industries), ISPs,
and users of copyrighted materials such as libraries, universities, and consumers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q7y-3sVg3Q

4. What is intellectual property? Understand the various forms of intellectual property.

Intellectual property encompasses all the tangible and intangible products of the human mind . In other
words, any product created by human intellect that is protected by law.

There are three main types of intellectual property protection: copyright, patent, and trademark law.
• Copyright law protects original forms of expression such as writings, drawings, and computer
programs from being copied by others for a minimum of 70 years. It does not protect ideas—just their
expression in a tangible medium.

• Patent law grants the owner of a patent an exclusive monopoly to the ideas behind an invention for
20 years. Patents are very different from copyrights in that they protect the ideas themselves and not
merely the expression of ideas.

There are four types of inventions for which patents are granted under patent law: machines, man-
made products, compositions of matter, and processing methods. In order to be granted a patent, the
applicant must show that the invention is new, original, novel, nonobvious, and not evident in prior arts
and practice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTNOAOxsXQI

• Trademark protections exist at both the federal and state levels in the United States. The purpose of
trademark law is twofold. First, trademark law protects the public in the marketplace by ensuring that it
gets what it pays for and wants to receive. Second, trademark law protects the owner who has spent
time, money, and energy bringing the product to market against piracy and misappropriation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQsZf2G4Sdc

5. Explain Google’s position that YouTube does not violate the intellectual property rights of
copyright owners.

In the Viacom case, Viacom alleges that YouTube and Google engaged in massive copyright infringement
by deliberately and knowingly building up a library of infringing works to draw traffic to the YouTube site
and enhance its commercial value.
In response, Google and YouTube claim that they are protected by the DMCA’s safe harbor and fair use,
and that it is often impossible to know whether a video is infringing or not. YouTube also does not
display ads on pages where consumers can view videos unless it has an agreement with the content
owner.
In October 2007, Google announced a filtering system (ContentID) aimed at addressing the problem. It
requires content owners to give Google a copy of their content so Google can load it into an auto-
identification system. The copyright owner can specify whether it will allow others to post the material.
Then after a video is uploaded to YouTube, the system attempts to match it with its database of
copyrighted material and removes any unauthorized material.

Many companies, such as YouTube and Google, have latched on to the provision of the DMCA that
relates to removing infringing material upon request of the copyright owner as a “safe harbor” that
precludes them from being held responsible for copyright infringement. A safe harbor is a private self
regulating policy and enforcement mechanism that meets the objectives of government
regulators and legislation, but does not involve government regulation or enforcement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dajJ4WUpCU
 6. Name three ways online advertising networks have improved on, or added to, traditional
offline marketing techniques.

 First, they have the ability to precisely track not just consumer purchases, but all browsing
behavior on the Web at thousands of the most popular member sites, including browsing book
lists, filling out preference forms, and viewing content pages.

 Second, they can dynamically adjust what the shopper sees on screen—including prices.
Example: Travel Websites.

 Third, they can build and continually refresh high-resolution data images or behavioral profiles
of consumers. Other advertising firms have created spyware software that, when placed on a
consumer’s computer, can report back to the advertiser’s server on all consumers Internet use,
and is also used to display advertising on the consumer’s computer.

7. Explain how behavioral targeting is supposed to benefit both consumers and businesses

Network advertising firms argue that Web profiling benefits both consumers and businesses. Profiling
permits targeting of ads, ensuring that consumers see advertisements mostly for products and services
in which they are actually interested. Businesses benefit by not paying for wasted advertising sent to
consumers who have no interest in their product or service.