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Responsibility of and Trust in ISPs

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Knowledge, Technology & Policy

Abstract

This discussion is about the neglected concepts of trust and social responsibility on the Internet. I will discuss and explain the concepts and their implications to people and society. I then address the issue of moral and social responsibilities of ISPs and web-hosting companies. I argue that ISPs and web-hosting companies should aspire to take responsibility for content and that they should respect and abide by their own terms of conduct.

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Notes

  1. See Cohen-Almagor (2011a, 2011b)

  2. “Trust,” Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English.

  3. Dutton and Shepherd (2005). See also (Dutton and Shepherd 2006).

  4. De Laat (2005: 170). See also (Pettit 2004).

  5. This problem has spawned a number of identity verification services. These services provide a verification-chain framework to both parties, while protecting sensitive information. See http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/nobody_knows_youre_a_dog.php

  6. http://plato.stanford.edu/

  7. Ebay.com

  8. Mansell and Collins (2005). Internet expert Brian Marcus argues that the Internet is based on trust. Most of its users act within the law. Therefore, in the USA, there are far more protections on free expression than restrictions on speech. We should not punish most users because of the small numbers who exploit the Internet to violate the law, and we should not allow a small number of abusers to dictate the rules of the game. Interview with Marcus, Washington DC (June 5, 2008).

  9. CSR as applied in this article, not to be confused with Corporate Social Responsibility.

  10. Compare to the responsibilities of the press; see (McQuail 2003).

  11. Web site hosting can give rise to liability for trademark infringement and copyright infringement but generally will not give rise to liability for defamation. The leading legal American precedents on Internet offensive speech are Cubby, Inc. v. CompuServe, 776 F. Supp. 135 (S.D.N.Y. 1991); Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co., 1995 WL 323710 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. May 24, 1995); Blumenthal v. Drudge, 992 F. Supp. 44 (D.D.C. 1998); Zeran v. AOL, 129 F.3d 327 (4th Cir. 1997), cert. denied, U.S., 118 S. Ct. 2341 (1998); Doe v. America Online 25 Media Law Rep. (BNA) 2112; 1997 WL 374223 (Fla. Circ. Ct. June 26, 1997); Case No. 97-2587 (Fourth District Court of Appeal, Fla., October 14, 1998). At present, American courts tend to hold that ISPs are not liable for content posted on their servers, this under Section 230(1) of the Communications Decency Act (1996) which reads: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” 47 U.S.C. 230. For analysis, see (Siderits 1996; Boehm 1998; Kane 1999; Goldstein 2000; Friedman and Buono 2000; Voelzke 2003).

  12. Floridi explains that the binary system of data encoding has noteworthy advantages. First, bits can equally well be represented semantically (meaning True/False), logico-mathematically (standing for 1/0) and physically (transistor=On/Off; switch=Open/Closed; electric circuit=High/Low voltage; disk or tape=Magnetized/Unmagnetized; CD=presence/absence of pits, etc.) and hence provide the common ground where semantics, mathematical logic, and the physics and engineering of circuits and information theory can converge. Second, this means that it is possible to construct machines that can recognize bits physically, behave logically on the basis of such recognition, and, therefore, manipulate data in ways which we find meaningful. Third, since digital data normally have only two states, such discrete variation means that a computer will hardly ever get confused about what needs to be processed, unlike an analog machine, which can often perform unsatisfactorily or imprecisely. See (Floridi 2010).

  13. Mathiason (2009). See also (Cohen-Almagor 2007).

  14. A botnet (also known as a Zombie army) is a number of Internet computers that, although their owners are unaware of it, have been set up to forward transmissions (including spam or viruses) to other computers on the Internet. Any such computer is referred to as a zombie—in effect, a computer “robot” or “bot” that serves the wishes of some master spam or virus originator. Most computers compromised in this way are home-based. See http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci1030284,00.html

  15. Federal Trade Commission v Pricewert LLC (United States District Court Northern District of California San Jose Division) (June 2 2009); “FTC Shuts Down Notorious Rogue Internet Service Provider, 3FN Service Specializes in Hosting Spam-Spewing Botnets, Phishing Web sites, Child Pornography, and Other Illegal, Malicious Web Content,” Federal Trade Commission (June 4, 2009), http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/06/3fn.shtm

  16. http://whois.domaintools.com/pricewert.com

  17. http://legal.web.aol.com/aol/aolpol/comguide.html.

  18. http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/info/terms.html.

  19. http://www.datapipe.com/Acceptable_Use_Policy.aspx.

  20. http://www.datapipe.com/Social_Responsibility.aspx

  21. http://www.biac.org/members/iccp/mtg/2008-06-seoul-min/DSTI-ICCP-IE(2005)3-FINAL.pdf; see also (Price and Verhulst 2000).

  22. http://powerballplace.blogspot.com/2005/03/how-to-kill-your-wife-and-get-away.html

  23. http://vampirefreaks.com/termsofservice.php. See also (Agrell and Cherry 2006)

  24. http://vampirefreaks.com/termsofservice.php

  25. Discussion with a research specialist, George Washington University, Washington DC (June 12, 2008). See (Silberman 2002).

  26. Interview with Marc Rotenberg, President of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Washington DC (May 2, 2008).

  27. http://www.checkpoint.com/products/enterprise/

  28. http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/security/Content/Product/Product_SGS.html; http://www.symantec.com/business/products/allproducts.jsp

  29. http://www.allot.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2&Itemid=4

  30. http://www.packeteer.com/solutions/visibility.cfm

  31. http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_bills&docid=f:s1738enr.txt.pdf

  32. Reporting of child pornography by electronic communication service providers, 42 USC 13032, http://vlex.com/vid/19244635

  33. Reuters, “France to block child pornography websites” (June 10, 2008).

  34. See an English communiqué—http://www.afa-france.com/p_20040113.anglais.html

  35. http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=441984&publicationSubCategoryId=200; http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/02/20/234945/facebook-removes-5500-sex-offenders.htm; News agencies, “Facebook blocked some 5,500 sex criminals,” Haaretz (February 20, 2009) (Hebrew).

  36. http://socialmediaportal.com/PressReleases/2008/01/-MySpace-and-Attorneys-General-Announce-Joint-Effo.aspx

  37. Aristotle (2008). See also Adkins (1984); Kraut (2002).

  38. Interview with a senior security officer, Washington DC (March 25, 2008).

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  1. Department of Politics and International Studies, The University of Hull, Hull, UK

    Raphael Cohen-Almagor

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  1. Raphael Cohen-Almagor
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Correspondence to Raphael Cohen-Almagor.

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I thank Janet Spikes for her excellent research assistance. All websites were accessed on January 18–21, 2010.

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Cohen-Almagor, R. Responsibility of and Trust in ISPs. Know Techn Pol 23, 381–397 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12130-010-9119-3

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