Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Morals and Ethics in Political Data Mining



I was drawn to the subject of political data mining when researching a topic to discuss. I stumbled upon a talk radio segment titled "On Point: Political Data Mining" and decided to listen. A few minutes in I realized this was not exactly the information I was hoping for. The segment focuses much more on the moral and ethical issues pertaining to political data mining rather than giving information on how it is accomplished. While this is not quite what I was searching for I believe this to be an issue that will become more and more prominent in the near future, therefore, worth addressing. 

Due to how much personal information companies are tapping into, many people are becoming more and more vocal about the ethicality of divulging the information without the consent of the persons being utilized. This segment discusses, in detail, the opposing opinions of the general public. In another blog I will discuss the process for which this information is extracted, sold, and used for campaigning purposes.

The most passionate opinion is the opposition of the distribution of this information. Many people with this opinion argue that not only are they taking and using this information without your consent, but much of the time without your knowledge of them even doing so. Many consider this a breach of privacy and demand legislation to regulate this.

On the other side of the argument, some state that they would rather have advertisements that are catered to them verses the alternative of having random ads. Some also believe that since you are not paying for the services that sites like Google, Yahoo, and Facebook provide, they have the right to take and sell whatever information they wish.

http://www.kdnuggets.com/2012/07/on-point-political-data-mining.html

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