Skip to main content

Digital Rights and Freedoms: A Framework for Surveying Users and Analyzing Policies

  • Chapter
Social Informatics (SocInfo 2014)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 8851))

Included in the following conference series:

  • International Conference on Social Informatics

Abstract

Interest has been revived in the creation of a “bill of rights” for Internet users. This paper analyzes users’ rights into ten broad principles, as a basis for assessing what users regard as important and for comparing different multi-issue Internet policy proposals. Stability of the principles is demonstrated in an experimental survey, which also shows that freedoms of users to participate in the design and coding of platforms appear to be viewed as inessential relative to other rights. An analysis of users’ rights frameworks that have emerged over the past twenty years also shows that such proposals tend to leave out freedoms related to software platforms, as opposed to user data or public networks. Evaluating policy frameworks in a comparative analysis based on prior principles may help people to see what is missing and what is important as the future of the Internet continues to be debated.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Amazon Mechanical Turk, http://www.mturk.com

  2. Cerf, V.: The Right to Connect and Internet Censorship. New Perspectives Quarterly 29(2), 18–23 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Clark, J.: Internet Users Bill of Rights: DOA. The Data Center Journal (March 13, 2014), http://www.datacenterjournal.com/it/internet-users-bill-rights-doa/

  4. Connolly, F.W.: Who Are Electronic Learners? Why Should We Worry About Them? Change 26(2), 39–41 (1994)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Connolly, F., Gilbert, S.W., Lyman, P.: A Bill of Rights for Electronic Citizens. OTA, Washington, DC (1990)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Creative Commons, http://creativecommons.org

  7. Curtis, R.: A Software User’s Bill of Rights - Draft 1, http://www.princeton.edu/~rcurtis/softrights.html

  8. Data Portability Project, http://dataportability.org

  9. Davies, T., Gangadharan, S.P. (eds.): Online Deliberation: Design, Research, and Practice. CSLI Publications, Stanford (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Do Not Track, http://donottrack.us

  11. Economides, N.: “Net Neutrality,” Non-Discrimination, and Digital Distribution of Content Through the Internet. I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy 4, 209–233 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  12. GNU Affero General Public License. Version 3 (November 19, 2007), http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html

  13. Karat, C.M.: The Computer User’s Bill of Rights (1988), http://theomandel.com/resources/users-bill-of-rights

  14. Karat, C.M., Brodie, C., Karat, J.: Usable Privacy and Security for Personal Information Management. Comm. ACM 49(1), 56–57 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Kelion, L.: Future of the Internet Debated at NETmundial in Brazil. BBC News (April 22, 2014), http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27108869

  16. Kensing, F., Blomberg, J.: Participatory Design: Issues and Concerns. CSCW 7, 165–185 (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Kiss, J.: An Online Magna Carta: Berners-Lee Calls for Bill of Rights for Web. The Guardian (March 11, 2014)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Lessig, L.: Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity. Penguin, New York (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  19. English Translation of the New Version of Brazil’s Marco Civil, http://infojustice.org/archives/31272

  20. Mari, A.: Brazil Passes Groundbreaking Internet Governance Bill. ZDNet (March 26, 2014), http://www.zdnet.com/brazil-passes-groundbreaking-internet-governance-bill-7000027740

  21. NETmundial Draft Outcome Document (April 14, 2014), http://document.netmundial.br/

  22. NETmundial Multistakeholder Statement (April 24, 2014), http://netmundial.br/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/NETmundial-Multistakeholder-Document.pdf

  23. O’Reilly, D.: Time to Update the Software User’s Bill of Rights (December 29, 2009), http://www.cnet.com/news/time-to-update-the-software-users-bill-of-rights

  24. Qualtrics: Online Survey Software and Insight Platform, http://www.qualtrics.com

  25. Parens, B.: The Open Source Definition. In: Di Bona, C., Ockman, S., Stone, M. (eds.) Open Sources: Voices From the Open Source Revolution, O’Reilly, Sebastopol (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Patrianakos, B.: The Internet User’s Bill of Rights (2014), http://userbillofrights.org/

  27. Rosen, J.: The Right to Be Forgotten. Stanford Law Rev. Online. 64, 88 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Mrs, H.E.: Dilma Rousseff, President (September 24, 2013), http://gadebate.un.org/68/brazil/

  29. Schuler, D., Namioka, A.: Participatory Design: Principles and Practices. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates (1993)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Smarr, J., Canter, M., Scoble, R., Arrington, M.: A Bill of Rights for Users of the Social Web (2007), http://the.networkingur.us/post/2007/09/05/A-Bill-of-Rights-for-Users-of-the-Social-Web

  31. Stallman, R.: Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman. Free Software Foundation, Cambridge, MA (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  32. Viégas, F.B., Wattenberg, M., McKeon, M.M.: The Hidden Order of Wikipedia. In: Schuler, D. (ed.) HCII 2007 and OCSC 2007. LNCS, vol. 4564, pp. 445–454. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  33. Web We Want, https://webwewant.org

  34. Your Portability Policy, https://web.archive.org/web/20120126204316/http://portabilitypolicy.org/sample-policies.html

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Davies, T. (2014). Digital Rights and Freedoms: A Framework for Surveying Users and Analyzing Policies. In: Aiello, L.M., McFarland, D. (eds) Social Informatics. SocInfo 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8851. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13734-6_31

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13734-6_31

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-13733-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-13734-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics