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This paper aims to explore the ethical and social impact of augmented visual field devices (AVFDs), identifying issues that AVFDs share with existing devices and suggesting new ethical and social issues that arise with the adoption of AVFDs.

This essay incorporates both a philosophical and an ethical analysis approach. It is based on Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, philosophical notions of transparency and presence and human values including psychological well-being, physical well-being, privacy, deception, informed consent, ownership and property and trust.

The paper concludes that the interactions among developers, users and non-users via AVFDs have implications for autonomy. It also identifies issues of ownership that arise because of the blending of physical and virtual space and important ways that these devices impact, identity and trust.

Developers ought to take time to design and implement an easy-to-use informed consent system with these devices. There is a strong need for consent protocols among developers, users and non-users of AVFDs.

There is a social benefit to users sharing what is visible on their devices with those who are in close physical proximity, but this introduces tension between notions of personal privacy and the establishment and maintenance of social norms.

There is new analysis of how AVFDs impact individual identity and the attendant ties to notions of ownership of the space between an object and someone’s eyes and control over perception.

Women as individuals experience subtle discrimination regarding career development opportunities as evidenced by research on the Glass Ceiling. This paper looks at the ramifications of technology, specifically the Internet, and how it affects women’s career opportunities.

Facebook users are both producers and consumers (i.e. “prosumers”), in the sense that they produce the disclosures that allow for Facebook's business success and they consume services. The purpose of this paper is to examine how best to characterize the commercialized and compliant members. The authors question the Facebook assertion that members knowingly and willingly approve of personal and commercial transparency and argue, instead, that complicity is engineered.

A survey of Facebook users was conducted between December 2010 and April 2011 at one private and four public universities. Respondents were questioned about: the level of their consumer activity on Facebook; their knowledge of Facebook advertiser data sharing practices and their attitude toward such; their use of sharing restrictions and the groups targeted; and their assessment of transparency benefits versus reputation and consumer risks.

No evidence was found to support the Facebook account of happy prosumers. Members reported that they avoided advertisements as much as possible and opposed data sharing/selling practices. However, many respondents were found to be relatively uneducated and passive prosumers, and those expressing a high concern for privacy were no exception.

Due to the nonprobability sampling method, the results may lack generalizability.

To avoid unwanted commercialization, users of social networking sites must become more aware of data mining and privacy protocols, demand more protections, or switch to more prosumer‐friendly platforms.

The paper reports empirical findings on Facebook members' prosumption patterns and attitudes.

There are two claims made by the web marketing/advertising industry. By collecting, managing, and mining data, companies serve consumer's best interests, and by adopting sophisticated analytics, web marketers avoid discriminations that disserve individuals. Although the paper shares an interest in ending social discrimination, the paper is more circumspect about pronounced individualism and technological fixes. Despite its appeal, or perhaps because of it, the paper should not accept the claim at face value. The paper argues that social discrimination may not disappear under smarter marketing; more overt forms may wane only to be replaced by more subtle forms. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The paper compares the two most important techniques of “smarter” marketing – predictive analytics and Facebook's social graph – with current discriminatory practices of weblining and e-scoring. While noting advances against overt discrimination, the paper describes how smarter marketing allows for covert forms.

Innovative strategies to record and mine users' tastes and social connectivity for marketing purposes open the way for covert social discrimination.

The paper provides a critical assessment of two claims made by the web marketing/advertising industry: by monitoring consumer web activity and collecting, managing, and mining data, companies serve consumer's best interests, and by adopting sophisticated analytics, web marketers avoid discriminations that disserve individuals.

During the past decade, a fairly extensive literature on the digital divide has emerged. Many reports and studies have provided statistical data (Digital Divide Network, 2002; NTIA, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2000) pertaining to sociological aspects of ‘the divide,’ while some studies have examined policy issues involving universal service (Camp and Tsong, 2001) and universal access (Brewer and Chuter, 2002). Other studies have suggested ways in which the digital divide could be better understood if it were ‘reconceptualized’ in terms of an alternative metaphor, e.g. a ‘divide’ having to do with literacy (Warschauer, 2002), power (Moss, 2002), content (Carvin, 2000), or the (information) environment (Floridi, 2001). However, with the exception of Johnson (2001) and Koehler (2002), authors have tended not to question ‐ at least not directly ‐ whether the digital divide is, at bottom, an ethical issue. Many authors seem to assume that because disparities involving access to computing technology exist, issues underlying the digital divide are necessarily moral in nature. Many further assume that because this particular ‘divide’ has to do with something that is digital or technological in nature, it is best understood as a computer ethical issue. The present study, which examines both assumptions, considers four questions: (1) What exactly is the digital divide? (2) Is this ‘divide’ ultimately an ethical issue? (3) Assuming that the answer to (2) is ‘yes,’ is the digital divide necessarily an issue for computer ethics? (4) If the answer to (3) is ‘yes,’ what can/should computer professionals do bridge the digital divide?

The purpose of an oversight structure or institution is to protect human subjects from research that would pose unacceptable dangers or deny human rights. Review boards provide an independent assessment of research proposals. This additional level of scrutiny is meant to provide an additional level of protection for human subjects. However, oversight of human subject research, as currently carried out in the bureaucratic, rule‐based, clinically‐biased American system, is too cumbersome with regard to online research. In addition, it is not conducive to the training of ethical Internet researchers. Internet research differs from traditional human subject research in many ways, and the oversight rules governing traditional research do not easily relate to the complexities of conducting research online. Online researchers do not oppose the foundational principles of non‐maleficence (avoiding harm) and autonomy, nor do they reject the ideals of informed consent and confidentiality, nevertheless, they face practical dilemmas in attempting to follow these principles and apply these ideals in the various Internet domains. The current oversight system is ill‐equipped to assist. A conservative response to this problem of fit might entail adjustments to the oversight system that, in the case of the American system, would entail modifications to the Common Rule and Institutional Review Boards (IRBs). I will argue in this paper, instead, that re‐structuring is needed to allow more oversight authority for Internet researchers. I will utilize Consequentialism and Virtue Ethics in making this case.

I gather that this paper was given its somewhat pretentious title in an endeavour to emphasize the practical approach which it was hoped I should bring to this subject this evening. How far I shall be able to live up to this hope I hesitate to say. I realize that the arrangement of information in your libraries presents a very practical problem and that it is very much of a practical issue with you what form of arrangement you shall choose for your catalogues and materials. Some of you, I believe, have not solved the problem at all and others of you are dis‐satisfied with the solution which you have found. Only a very few enviable geniuses have found the complete solution to their own particular problems.

It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.