Respecting Privacy

A problem that's been at the forefront of ethical debates in the software industry for at least the last couple of decades, and will likely remain at the forefront for at least another decade, is the use or misuse of personal data. In a quest to drive adoption, many software vendors have ended up distributing their software below cost and gaining revenue by collecting data about their users to sell to advertisers and other aggregators.

This practice of selling user data could be seen as unethical, as it may break the imperative to honor the privacy of others. This is especially true if the user did not give informed consent to sharing the data; if the user is a child who did not understand the implications of sharing the data; or if the information gathered is more than the minimum required to support the sharing activity.

Because this is such a large and immediate problem that is continually being raised and discussed both in the tech press and the corridors of power...