Business and Intellectual Property Quiz

ITM 100 Class 12: Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems

• Big data is a double-edged sword, presenting both opportunities and ethical concerns

• Predictive policing algorithms can perpetuate existing biases, leading to unfair targeting of communities

• Insurance companies using big data to determine premiums based on various factors (driving history, location, credit scores) can lead to discriminatory pricing. Lack of transparency in calculation methods leaves consumers disadvantaged.

• Ethical and societal implications of new technologies and an inadequate legal environment present a problem.

• Solutions include developing a big data strategy, privacy policies, and creating big data predictive models, mining technology, and analytics tools.

• Various companies have faced ethical and legal issues related to information systems

• Examples include General Motors (faulty ignition switches), Takata (faulty airbags), Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays & UBS (manipulating LIBOR), SAC Capital (insider trading), GlaxoSmithKline (prescription drug promotion), McKinsey & Company (insider trading), and Bank of America (mortgage fraud).

• More recently, Volkswagen was accused of cheating emissions tests.

Ethics and Information Systems

• Ethics are principles of right and wrong that guide individuals' behaviors.
• Information systems create new ethical dilemmas due to intense social change, challenging power, money, rights, and obligations.
• These systems also facilitate new kinds of crime.

Layers of Issues

• Ethical issues concern individual and collective behavior in the use of information systems, encompassing privacy concerns and algorithmic transparency.
• Social issues focus on broad societal effects of IT, such as digital divide and social media influence.
• Political issues concern governance, law, and regulations to manage ethical and social impacts of information technology, including intellectual property rights and cybersecurity.

Key Topics

• Information Rights and Obligations: Who has the right to access, own, and control information?
• Property Rights and Obligations: How intellectual property is protected in the digital age.
• Accountability and Control: Determining responsibility for consequences stemming from IT system use.
• System Quality: Ensuring reliability and security of IT systems.
• Quality of Life: Impact of IT on well-being and societal standards.

Technology Trends that Raise Ethical Issues

• Computing power doubles every 18 months.
• Data storage costs rapidly decrease.
• Detailed databases on individuals are easily maintained.
• Data analysis methods advance.
• Networking advances permit remote access to personal data.
• Mobile device growth impacts usage and tracking of individual data.

Internet Challenges to Privacy

• Cookies identify browser and track site visits.
• Super cookies (Flash cookies) are used for tracking.
• Web beacons (web bugs) are tiny graphics tracking online activity.
• Spyware secretly collects information, transmitting keystrokes or displaying unwanted ads.
• Google services employ behavioral targeting (DoubleClick).
• The United States allows data collection and use for marketing.
• Opt-out vs. opt-in models control data collection.

Technical Solutions

• E-mail encryption, anonymity tools, and anti-spyware software help protect user privacy from tracking across sites.
• Browser features like "private browsing" and "do not track" options offer more control, but effective protection is still a problem.

Other Real-World Ethical Dilemmas

• Technology's use in workforce reduction.
• Selling subscriber information to advertisers.
• Employees using corporate IT for personal use.
• IT use for monitoring employees.
• Data analysis techniques like profiling and nonobvious relationship awareness (NORA) allow for detailed dossiers of individuals to be created from data in multiple sources.

Ethics in an Information Society: Basic Concepts

• Responsibility: Accepting costs, duties, and obligations for decisions.
• Accountability: Identifying the responsible parties.
• Liability: Permitting recovery for damages done to individuals or firms.
• Due process: Legal recourse for grievances against IT system actions.

Ethical Analysis

• Five-step process for making ethical judgments about information systems decisions: define facts, identify conflict/dilemmas, identify stakeholders, explore options, and evaluate consequences.

Candidate Ethical Principles

• Golden Rule, Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative, Descartes' Rule of Change, and the Utilitarian Principle guide ethical decision-making.

Information Rights: Privacy and Freedom in the Internet Age

• Claim of individuals to be left alone, free from state surveillance or interference.
• Individuals are entitled to control the information available about themselves.
• Fair information practices (FIPs), COPPA rules, and the Do-Not-Track Online Act of 2011 regulate data collection, specifically for children.

European Directive on Data Protection

• Use of data necessitates informed consent from customers.
• Informed consent must include complete disclosure of all relevant facts for the decision to be rational.
• EU member nations must adhere to similar privacy standards when transferring personal data to other countries
• Stricter enforcement mechanisms are under consideration.

Safe Harbor

• A private system for self-regulation of data policies and procedures without government intervention.
• Businesses must use personal data from EU countries in accordance with EU standards.
• Enforcement is carried out through self-regulation, consumer protection policies, and government oversight.

Property Rights: Intellectual Property

• Intellectual property refers to intangible/tangible creations by individuals or corporations, including trade secrets, copyrights, and patents, and how these creations are protected.

Patents

• Patents grant exclusive rights for use ideas behind inventions over a specific period of time.
• Originality, novelty, and inventive concepts are crucial for obtaining patents.

Challenges to Intellectual Property Rights

• Digital media's ease of replication, transmission, alteration, along with difficulty of establishing uniqueness create problems in enforcing rights to intellectual property.
• Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) criminalizes circumvention of technology protecting copyrighted materials.

Computer-Related Liability Problems

• Determining responsibility for software failures: Who is liable in cases of software malfunction causing harm to computer users or property?
• Difficulty of establishing liability when software is part of larger systems.
• Software as a service: Establishing liability for services offered through software systems.

System Quality: Data Quality and System Errors

• Establishing a reasonable standard of system quality includes factors such as accuracy, reliability, and system security.
• Flawless software may not be economically feasible; therefore, software bugs, errors, and hardware failures remain a challenge.
• Poorly entered data is the most common cause of system error in a business context.

Quality of Life: Equity, Access, Boundaries

• Negative social consequences of systems include uneven distribution of power, rapid change, and effects on family, work, and leisure time.
• Dependence on technology and vulnerability to negative effects of systems.
• Computer crime and abuse of systems including spam, employment effects, and health risks.

ITM 100 Class 11: Information Systems, Organizations, and Strategy

• Porter's five forces analysis for competitive strategies within a firm.
• Value chain analysis provides a detailed view of a firm in terms of the primary and support activities involved in creating its products or services.
• Network economics, virtual companies, and business ecosystems strategies to leverage networked abilities for competitive advantage.
• Challenges of sustaining competitive advantage, which competitors may react to via imitation and counter strategies.

ITM 100 Class 10: Emerging Technologies & AI

• Overview of emerging hardware platform trends including mobile devices, BYOD, cloud computing, and virtualization.
• Software trends: Open-source software, software for the web (Java, HTML, HTML5), Web services, software outsourcing, and cloud services.
• Artificial intelligence (AI): definitions, types (expert systems, machine learning, neural networks, natural language processing, computer vision, robotics), and common examples.
• Intelligent agents in the business context.

ITM 100 Class 9: Securing Information Systems

• Real-world instances of computer system security breaches (TJX, Heartland Payment Systems).
• Data breaches, including types of computer crime, and vulnerabilities.
• Security solutions for hardware, software, network, and user-level vulnerabilities.
• Policies and procedures to secure information systems.
• Key concepts associated with cryptography, including ciphers and keys.

ITM 100 Class 8: E-commerce, Digital Markets, and Digital Goods

• Distinguish between B2B, B2C, and C2C e-commerce.
• E-commerce revenue models including advertising, sales, subscription, free/freemium, transaction fees, and affiliates.
• E-commerce's impact on marketing and how it transformed marketing methodology.

ITM 100 Class 7: Telecommunications, the Internet, and Wireless Technologies

• Telecommunications concepts, including the structure of networks (local area networks (LAN), wide area networks (WAN)), and methods of communication (packet switching).
• Overview of the Internet including its architecture, addressing (IP, DNS) and protocols (TCP/IP).
• Brief look at emerging technologies with respect to wireless communications.

Test your knowledge on the dynamics of buyer-supplier relationships, industry rivalry, and the fundamentals of intellectual property rights. This quiz covers essential concepts including switching costs, the power of suppliers, and legal protections for creators. Assess your understanding of the challenges faced by digital media in relation to copyright and patents.