News and Research articles on Transparency

Privacy

The quantified consumer: blind, non-informed and manipulated?

Stefan Larsson, Lund University

PUBLISHED ON: 2 Jul 2017

The importance of personal data for the digital economy accentuates a problematic information asymmetry between consumers and the data-driven market players. An increased consumer protection would have to deal with the lack of transparency of this black-box setup and a flawed use of consent as regulatory model. The consumer protection needs to be improved in practice, in its implementation, not only in its policy.

Volume 3, Issue 4

Staking out the unclear ethical terrain of online social experiments

Cornelius Puschmann, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society
Engin Bozdag, Delft University of Technology
PUBLISHED ON: 26 Nov 2014 DOI: 10.14763/2014.4.338

The 'Facebook online social experiment' has caused much controversy. Researchers Cornelius Puschmann and Engin Bozdag review the debate around research ethics and come to the conclusion that "benefits for science should be balanced with possible hazards that may be caused by experiments, rather than precluding that such benefits outweigh the gains".

KEYWORDS: Research ethics, Online social experiments, Data science, Transparency, Algorithmic curation
Transparency
1

Vodafone and the number game

Monika Ermert, Heise, Intellectual Property Watch, VDI-Nachrichten

PUBLISHED ON: 25 Jun 2014

Early this month, the mobile and internet operator Vodafone released a report putting figures on data disclosures made to governments. That's a first but can it be called real transparency?

Volume 2, Issue 3

Necessary and inherent limits to internet surveillance

Joss Wright, Oxford Internet Institute
PUBLISHED ON: 5 Aug 2013 DOI: 10.14763/2013.3.184

There are significant dangers in surveilling online communications unless the mechanisms and policies of surveillance are subject to strict and legally enforceable standards of transparency, oversight, and control.

KEYWORDS: Surveillance, Intelligence services, Base rate fallacy, Interception, Fundamental principles, Predictive algorithms, Privacy, Security, Content data, Communications data, Bundestrojaner, National Security Agency (NSA), PRISM, Tempora, Encryption, Liability, Transparency, Cyber security, Content, Censorship, Filtering
Intellectual property

Trade partnership gets nod from majority in European Parliament

Monika Ermert, Heise, Intellectual Property Watch, VDI-Nachrichten

PUBLISHED ON: 3 Jun 2013

The majority of the European Parliament welcomed the start of the negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – a EU-US free trade agreement - in a resolution released in Strasbourg on May 15. The Green Party wanted more conditions to avoid a potential degradation of European standards in data protection. European civil rights organisations warn against a mega-ACTA-like free trade agreement.