Tony Sidaway wrote:
On 6/21/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
What -is- the ethical question? The information is already easily available to anyone who wishes to find it, so right-to-privacy doesn't hold.
Actually, it does. We are not a newspaper archive and our standards are not theirs. If we do not need to use the names of living private individuals, we should not do so, because *every* publication of information about a private individual diminishes his privacy, and while we are not in a position to control the contents of many newspaper archives, we certainly are in complete control of one of the most popular information sources on the planet. We should not needlessly compromise privacy.
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Needlessly, no. Which is why we shouldn't go digging through some town's court records and publish a "List of people convicted of speeding in Podunk in 1994."
On the other hand, in this case, there is a need and a rationale. You can argue that your consideration -competes- with that need, and it may turn out others agree with you. But as I said, that's a discussion which should be held by the community as a whole. I have a suspicion a whole lot of people don't know this discussion is going on and won't like it once it hits them over the head. Put it on the watchlist notice. If you're as right as you think you are, you'll just get unequivocal support from the whole community!