Privacy-related matrix frameworks and applications

Ethical Matrix

Ethical Dilemma Matrix

Ethical Dilemma:

A business organization's Internet Service Provider (ISP) is providing preferential service (improved access, faster connection and download/upload speeds) to certain websites, apparently on the basis of business ties and co-ownership entanglements.

Ethical Principles:

Autonomy, Justice, Respect for Persons

Stakeholders:

End Users:

-Users of the Internet have the duty to make and exercise their own choices, which is limited by preferential access.

-This duty also insists that users be able to face all risks and opportunities available in equal measure, and with fair access.

-Users have the right to be viewed as important ends in and of themselves, served by the ISP and not simply serving the ISP in terms of money.

The Organization:

the organization has a duty to ensure that its employees can perform their functions with minimal interference, and that stakeholders in the business are able to exercise autonomy in their investments, which requires full knowledge.

-Justice demands that the organization be able to pursue all sources of information and services equally, without controlled access to certain providers or information

-Respecting shareholders, employees, and other stakeholders means working towards providing them the greatest fairness, equality, functionality, and direct return on investment. This is upheld through a variety of laws as well (Kapoor 2007).

3) Other Websites:

-Websites have a duty to work towards free and equal access in order to achieve real autonomy and the ability to exercise free will

-Preferential access directly impinges on the equal distribution of opportunities and risks inherent to the justice principle, barring un-preferred websites from equal access to users and consumers

-Treated as persons, websites have the right to the same respect as ends in and of themselves as any other entity, and should not be trampled simply because they are seen as competitor.

4) The ISP:

-- the ISP's right to act autonomously is limited by policy, which requires equal access and a certain level of "net neutrality" in the use of broadband wavelengths, which are considered public property leased to the ISP (FCC 2005).

-- the ISP has a duty to act with justice, treating all websites and users equally and ensuring equal access to all parts of the Internet within legal and ethical limits

-Respect for individual persons is clearly lacking in any decision that limits their autonomy and treats them simply as means to an end (i.e. greater profits) rather than ends in and of themselves