Computer Ethics, Summer 2020 online, Class 7

Miniwriting

Write a few sentences on the Sakai forum, or, if you really prefer, send them to me by email. I'd like them by the next class.

Class 7 Readings

Videos:

• Speech 1, on an intro to §230
• Speech 2, on continued §230 cases
• Privacy and Others 1 (includes Facebook)
• Privacy and Others 2 (includes Cookies)
• Privacy and Others 3 (includes Price Discrimination)

Tomorrow I will post two videos on privacy from commerical interests (eg advertisers)

Readings:

• Free Speech: Chapter 3     (we will probably start this by next Thursday, June 11)

In the Class 3 notes I posted something about Ebay port-scanning your computer. Here's a followup:

    blog.nem.ec/2020/05/24/ebay-port-scanning/

The scanning code is heavily obfuscated, and further obfuscated by being loaded as a "blob" URL. It comes from a company called ThreatMetrix, now owned by LexisNexis. The company is a little weird. Try a DNS lookup on src.ebay-us.com.

In the notes privacy_others.html#advertising, there are some modest numbers on FB income per user. Here are updated numbers:

Facebook revenue in 2019: $70 B, on 2 B users, or $35/year, or $3/user/month

US ARPU (Average Revenue Per User): $40 in Q4, or $13/user/month

Data Bureaus

Clearview and how they got the pictures

Theories of privacy

Smith v Pillsbury

    communications and privacy

Loyola email policies

Target and Pregnancy: was something here wrong?

Insurance

RFID

SSNs

Price Discrimination

Intro to free speech

Free speech issues relevant to computing:

• blogging
• defamation
• publishing DRM / security information, and DMCA restrictions
• age verification
• Jurisdiction and free speech
• Is source code covered by the First Amendment?
• §230

The importance of §230 to the tech industry

    Could Facebook survive without §230? Could Twitter?

Batzel v Cremers: expanding §230 to you and me