The only ethical choice? Are you employing hyperbole or serious? Lets
set aside the ip request for now, and just look at the two releases
made so far, without personal info. You're seriously suggesting that
someone infering from edits that person x, without knowing the
identity of that person, likes to edit about kangaroo's and trees, but
not tree kangaroos, used to create a deeper, better understanding of
mankind and the way we function is the unethical choice? Like i said,
leaveing out this new request and just going with the two previous
releases, it would seem almost criminal to not make the non personal
data available for research.
On 9/15/07, Brian <Brian.Mingus(a)colorado.edu> wrote:
Wikiresearch-l had a roundtable about this at
Wikimania two years ago. We
reached no conclusion. I would love to pipe this data through my quality
classifier, especially combined with the edit histories of the associated
users. But do you realize what kind of a double whammy that is? Not only do
you have their surfing habits, you've got their editing habits. On one of
the largest websites in the world. This data is of unspeakable value not
only to researchers, but to spammers, would-be identity thieves and others.
Although having this data is a wet dream of mine, I find it unconscionable
to release it, and I feel that whoever was responsible for releasing it has
already overstepped their bounds. We already know from the New York Times
analyzing AOL's search logs that persons can be identified from search logs,
and we know from Microsoft's Non-Disclosure Agreements with universities
around the world for portions of the Windows 2000 source code that these
NDAs, even to universities, are not effective in stopping the data from
being leaked.
Now that the data has already been released, it is imminent that the
foundation create an explicit philosophy about data retention policies and
the circumstances under which user data may be released. I suggest that it
never be released, and that the foundation hire and/or appoint a
statistician for analyzing logs in-house. Perhaps this person can act as a
liaison in certain, well defined situations that do not compromise the
personal information of anyone beyond what is already available in database
dumps. This is the only ethical approach in my opinion.
On 9/15/07, Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
On 9/14/07, Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
For a while now, we've been releasing squid
log data, stripped of
personally identifying information such as IP addresses, to groups at
two universities: Vrije Universiteit and the University of Minnesota. We
now have a request pending from a third group, at Universidad Rey Juan
Carlos in Spain. They are asking if they can have the full data stream
including IP addresses, and they are prepared to sign a confidentiality
agreement to get it.
"Wikimedia will not sell or share private information, such as email
addresses, with third parties, unless you agree to release this
information, or it is required by law to release the information."
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy
Under the current policy I would not support it, even if "private
information" is somewhat ambiguous: we must err on the side of
caution.
I might support a research exemption clause in future versions of the
policy _if_ a compelling case can be made that such an exemption is
needed, and that no alternative research method would produce results
of approximately the same quality. So far no such case has been made.
Whatever we do, it is crucial that we make it clear to our users
through our privacy policy what is going on. In that spirit, I would
also appreciate it if the privacy policy could be updated to describe
the existing agreements with universities, and the work that is being
done on the toolserver.
--
Toward Peace, Love & Progress:
Erik
DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
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