Fair Information Practices with Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)

E-mail and conferencing systems retain electronic information which can be reused indefinitely with little control by the people who were writing with the system. One can imagine cases in which managers may wish to review transcripts of key meetings held by computer conferencing to learn the bases of specific decisions, who took various positions on controversial issues, or to gain insight into their subordinate’s interactional styles. Other systems, such as voice and video links, are often designed not to store information. But they can raise questions about who is tuning in, and the extent to which participants are aware that their communication systems is “on.”

Fair Information Practices with Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)

The use of e-mail raises interesting privacy issues. In the case of e-mail, privacy issues arise when people lose control over the dissemination of their mail messages. When should managers be allowed to read the e-mail of their subordinates? One can readily conjure instances where managers would seek access to e-mail files.

Fair Information Practices with Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)

The computing community is beginning to be collectively aware of the possible privacy issues in CSCW applications. Professionals who use CSCW can lose privacy.

Net Presence

I hope that we, as network citizens, take this opportunity to think through which purposes we would wish the dynamics of Net presence to have, and do what we can morally do to shape network culture so that Net presence becomes a force for community and solidarity, and not another generation of public-issues manipulation and star-making machinery.