Ethical Issues of IT

The distinction between what is legal and what is illegal is usually clear, but drawing a line between what is ethical and what is unethical is more difficult. Some information systems professionals believe that information technology offers many opportunities for unethical behavior, particularly because of the ease of collecting and disseminating information. Cybercrime, cyberfraud, identity theft, and intellectual property theft are on the rise. Nearly 15 million U.S. residents have their identities stolen every year with a total loss of over of $50 billion. This means one identity is stolen every two seconds with an average loss of $3,500.16.

Although U.S. citizens do not want the government controlling Web access, many parents are concerned about what their children are exposed to while using the Web, such as pornography, violence, and adult language.

Intellectual property is a legal umbrella covering protections that involve copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, and patents for “creations of the mind” developed by people or businesses. Intellectual property can be divided into two categories: industrial property (inventions, trademarks, logos, industrial designs, and so on) and copy-righted material, which covers literary and artistic works.

Generally, copyright laws protect tangible material, such as books, drawings, and so forth. However, they also cover online materials, including Web pages, HTML code, and computer graphics, as long as the content can be printed or saved on a storage device. Copyright laws give only the creator exclusive rights, meaning no one else can reproduce, distribute, or perform the work without permission.

One aspect of intellectual property that has attracted attention recently is cybersquatting, which is registering, selling, or using a domain name to profit from someone else’s trademark. Often, it involves buying domains containing the names of existing businesses and then selling the names for a profit. Some believe that information technology and the Internet have created a digital divide between the information rich and the information poor. Although prices have been decreasing steadily, computers still are not affordable for many people.

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