Intellectual Property in
Electronic Commerce
MANG 493L
Week 5
Virginia F. Kleist, Ph.D.
Outline
What is intellectual property? Why has it
become so easy to lose control of one’s
intellectual property?
Mechanisms of control afforded by legal
structure
Problems with legal infrastructure
Ethical and social considerations
Discussion of Rappa readings for today
Things to think about from
Dr. Rappa’s webtext
(Rappa, web text,
http://digitalenterprise.org/ip/ip.html)
 When is a hyperlink from one site to web pages
within another site illegal?
 When is a business method patentable?
 When is a domain name a trademark
infringement?
 When is a spider trespassing?
 When is a metatag a trademark infringement?
 When is your reputation someone else's
property?
When is sharing information a crime?
What is the concern about
Intellectual Property?
(from Rappa
webtext)
Information products more pervasive
Binary nature of web is easily
reproducible, images, video, software and
written words
Widely distributed
Lack of control over distribution
No impediment to making copies
What are the moral and
ethical issues?
(Laudon and Laudon, 2002)
Ethics are the principles of right and
wrong used by individuals as free moral
agents to guide behavior
What we think is right and wrong varies
Society has politics which creates laws
which may also guide behavior
Right now, the laws underlying
information goods products are not up to
date or current enough to the issues
Ethics vs. Morality
(Laudon and Laudon, 2002)
Ethics are the principals that one holds up
as the best behavior
Morals are if one actually lives up to the
ethics which one subscribes to
Examples of moral issues in firms with
data: Continental Can, AT and T, GTE,
Epson Email, Xerox
Issues related to
Intellectual Property
(Laudon and
Laudon, 2002)
Information Rights and obligations
Property rights
Accountability and control
System quality
Quality of life
Technology has impacted
information rights
(Laudon and Laudon, 2002)
Use of computers makes vulnerabilities
declining costs of data storage makes
routine violations of data ownership easy
less expensive to move data around,
profile people
much better algorithms to track patterns
in data
What are our ethical
prinicipals?
(Laudon and Laudon, 2002)
Golden Rule
Kant
Descartes
Value on outcomes
Incur least harm
No free lunch
US Fair Information Rights:
1973 Guiding Principals
(Laudon
and Laudon, 2002)
Privacy
FIP, Fair Information Practices
No personal records
Individuals can fix info about themselves
Prior consent to use info about person
Managers are accountable
Governments can intervene
US Federal Privacy Laws
(Laudon and Laudon, 2002)
FOIA, 1968
Privacy Act, 1974
Electronic Communications Privacy Act,
1986
Computer Matching and Privacy Protection
Act, 1988
Computer Security Act, 1987
Federal Managers Financial Integrity Act,
1982
US Federal Privacy Laws
for Companies
(Laudon and Laudon, 2002)
Fair Credit, 1970
Family Education Rights and Privacy Act,
1978
Right to Financial Privacy Act, 1978
Privacy Protection Act, 1980
Cable Communications Policy Act, 1984
Electronic Communications Privacy Act,
1986
Video Privacy Protection Act
Intellectual Property
Definitions
Intellectual Property
Trade Secret
Copyright
Trademark
Patent
Class Discussion on
Readings
1. What technological factors have lead to the ethical and social concerns associated with Information Technology?
What are we worried about?
2. What are the U.S. Federal government privacy laws? Are these sufficient to protect us, or do we need stronger laws in today's
technological climate?
3. What is the difference between intellectual property, trade secret, copyright, trade mark and patent? (Laudon and Laudon 2002).
Explain the gap between these legal mechanisms of protection of private property and ideas and the reality of today's IT.
4. What are some of the data found in our readings about crime on the Internet? What forms of crime have been prevalent?
What are the different kinds of threats that are seen on the Internet which jeopardize our privacy and security?
Are these crimes real or are people overconcerned about things which are very rare?
5. What is the ecommerce effect of fear of crime on the Internet? Does it matter if the crime is real or perceived?
How might an ecommerce venture assure the clients about their privacy and security in using their web site?
6. What are some of the formal mechanisms which are evolving on the Internet to guarantee one's privacy is upheld?
Do these formal mechanisms help the situation?
7. What are "cookies?" What do you think about cookies? How safe are cookies? Do you think that their use is okay, or do
you have hardware and security issues about them? Why or why not? What are some of the ethical issues about cookies?
8. What is an ecommerce Internet security policy? What kinds of things might an ecommerce firm look at in a security audit?
What items should be included in an ecommerce security policy? Should an external firm conduct the security audit?
9. Hagel and Singer write in "Private Lives," an excerpt from Net Worth, that consumers are selling their personal information
too cheaply, and that there will probably be a rise of a function called an information infomediary.
The infomediary will take consumer information and market it for the consumer, who will receive goods of value in exchange for
information which is of value, but is currently not paid for. What is their idea of an "information infomediary" about, and
can you think of any real world examples of such a thing today?
Class Discussion on
Readings
10. Who should own customer web "click through" data? The web publisher or the web advertiser? The web publisher sometimes
directs the customer to specific web banner ads based on previous click through behaviors, but the banners are paid
for by the clients. Is it right for publishing sites to sell click through information to other advertisers than the
client who paid for the ads? IBM delivers its own ads on the Internet while other companies use third party vendors
like Doubleclick. Which model is more likely to succeed and why?
11. How much privacy is justified? Can you argue that some amount of information about you is useful,
like when LL Bean knows your street address and credit card number, so you do not have to repeat it?
How much is too much?
12. What is an online privacy policy, how do you find if a firm has one, and what is usually contained in an online privacy
policy? How effective do you think the FTC's Children's Online Privacy Rule will be when it is place into effect?
13. How realistic is it to consider that web sites will do a good job at self regulation of privacy concerns? In the US?
Worldwide? How effective can/should government policies and laws be in this new area? Why?
14. From Rappa's webtext on privacy: "What rights do users have to preserve their privacy? What are the rights of
data owners who exploit information about web users without their permission? How should permission be
obtained? And indeed, who can (or should) claim ownership over the data collected? Is it merchants, or advertisers,
or service providers who should be in control?"
15. Lessig argues that the infrastructure of the Internet is not currently designed to solve the legal and ethical challenges
which are stressing the system, but that the infrastructure can be technologically changed in fairly simple ways so as
to avoid these confrontations of technology and ethics. Digital signatures, third party affirmations, encryption and
other technologies can build the checks and balances into ecommerce that we currently see in regular business. He
compares the Internet to the problems of a lack of enforced rules in Russia today- Russian business
is missing the infrastructure of safety and so is the Internet. Until these fundamental securities are built into
the infrastructure, ecommerce will be constrained. Agree or disagree? What are some of the issues here?
Freedom and privacy vs. legal protection and security? How will/has ecommerce change the nature of the Internet?