Downloading Music

The government is having a hard time controlling the amount of 'free' and 'illegal' downloads of copyrighted content that consumers have access to. One of the main problems is that there is virtually no regulatory system that is used to control what people upload and download while online. The government having access and information on how we are using our networks would be, to most people, a violation of privacy. So what are we do to when almost all the students in our class raised their hands for downloading music illegally? Should the government have more access to our personal computers to decide who should be punished for their illegal actions. I myself download music illegally, but only stream movies or TV shows--which could also be considered illegal. I would not want the government to have access to how I am using my internet. There are three things I would propose that would discourage these types of downloads.
1. Stricter punishments for smaller downloads. Many users get WARNING messages from their internet providers if it is clear that they have been downloading a lot of illegal content. The WARNING serves as just that, a warning. There are no punishments involved. If the first WARNING message came with a 30 dollar fine-- that would definitely prevent people from even considering downloading in the first place. Of course there would have to be a court system where people could appeal the charge and prove that they weren't downloading anything illegally.

2. There should be stricter privacy settings on CD's, DVDs, and even on itunes, where purchased files cannot leave their original folder, and no copies can be made. I know on many DVD's this security system is set in place but it is not very strong, and CDs and itunes have almost no security, allowing you to copy music on to many different computers. Stricter security on the original hardware of the technology will discourage those from trying to extract all the files information.

3. There recently was an Ad campaign out there that tried to guilt those who downloaded music or movies by saying-- "You wouldn't steal a car" This did not have the effect that the campaign was supposed to, because there was some backlash to the Ad and it became more of a joke (see youtube video below). There should be a new campaign that shows insight to who the consumer is taking money from when they download music. If consumers could see how they are affecting struggling artists, they may pay the 15 dollars for a CD.

Privacy Enhanced Personalization

This article deals with the trade off between privacy and personalization that many consumers don't know they are involved in. While we indulge in the great benefits of personalization on the web such as product recommendations, online search aggregations, and personalized tutoring systems, we do not realize the implications these features have on our privacy. How much a citizen/consumer is willing to share online is connected to their personality, cultural based attitudes, the type of information disclosed, and the value that is assigned to personalization benefits. These factors all combine to create categories for how much information citizens divulge. In my personal inexperience, I am privacy pragmatic, I absolutely love any personalization feature that can save me time, money, or anything that could ultimately make my web browsing experience more enjoyable. On the other hand my father is a privacy fundamentalist- he hates sharing any personal information due to his upbringing in soviet Poland where all information was owned by the government. While I love having my information more personalized, I do believe that I may over valuate small but immediate benefits of divulging personal information and undervalue any future negative impacts; This way of thinking is called Acquisti and it is something that many people other than myself may deal with. With the recent allegations made by Edward Snowden pertaining to how the United States uses our data, it is imperative that we take a harder look at our decision to trade off privacy for personalization. This leads to the question, when does personalization ultimately overstep its bounds? At what point will I feel violated? This answer is different for many people, but shouldn’t companies constantly be working to make sure that their guidelines fit with the consumers needs? In the article 93% of people said they should have a legal right to know everything a website knows about them, BUT we never read the terms and conditions. In fact- a mere presence of privacy statements provide more trust, even if the level of privacy was very low. Consumers and businesses should work together to make terms, conditions, and privacy statements more customizable to our personal needs. I should be able to select what I am comfortable with the company having and what I am not. At the same time, none of the information the company has on me should be used for any other purpose besides personalization.

Throughout reading this article I was bombarded with an ethical question that happened recently in the news: A man claimed that he accidentally left his baby boy in a hot car- and the baby died. Later news revealed that he had actually googled how long and what temperature he could leave a baby in a car for it to become fatal. Should this information be used in court? Is it okay to breach a citizen’s privacy for the overall safety of the community?