Kara Sordelett

1. Online courses should be reconsidered.
There are times when an online course could be useful. When a student needs to be off campus for personal reasons, an online course may be necessary to complete course requirements. For professionals wishing to return to school, but do not have the ability to go to night classes on a regular basis, an online course could be useful. For a student who lives on campus or within the vicinity of campus, online courses are not necessary. They take away from the teacher/student and student/student relations and class discussion.

2. Businesses/ Companies/ Grad Schools should not access potential candidate’s blogs and/or social network pages.
There are equal opportunity acts against discrimination of age, race, gender, etc. Why should these same companies be given the ability to discriminate based on a profile or a passage written about something that happened in someone’s life? A person’s behavior in and out of work can vary. If a candidate is a partier outside of work, doesn’t mean that this person will be irresponsible on the clock. There is also the Solo cup conspiracy. Solo cups are used for more than just alcohol. Who uses glass containers or non-disposable cups when camping or out where a sink or dishwasher isn’t available.

3. Children under the age of18 should not be allowed to create a social networking account.
Social networking sites such as Facebook that were designed for college students may prove to be inappropriate for children under 18. Myspace has been proven to be a target for online predators and young, impressionable children should not be made susceptible to this. There is a security issue with a person pretending to be someone else. Just recently a woman was tried for pretending to be a young boy taunting a young girl, who killed herself based on what she thought this boy was saying to her.

4. The internet should be free of charge.
Does this mean internet service providers should not charge for a person to have internet access at home or that all websites should be free for any person to view? I don’t think there would be an issue allowing free access from service providers. There are maintenance issues and hardware which cost money, so this may not be possible. Nothing is ever “free” anyway. As far as not charging for access to chosen websites, this is not unlikely. Most websites are free and are paid for through advertising. So far is seems the advertisements work because of the amount of free websites there are.

5. Hate speech on the internet should be restricted.
The main questions are how to restrict it and who would be in charge of finding the speech. We’ve discussed the different radical groups that could be targeted for this, but who would have the job of finding it and removing it? Could you ban a repeat offender, at least from the website in question? If people have free access to websites it could pose a problem of tracking a repeat offender. Using a different IP address is only one way of getting around those people looking for repeat offenders.

6. The internet should not be owned or controlled by any one person or organization.
Would there be multiple organizations or people controlling it? What is the internet being defined as in this statement- websites such as Wikipedia that anyone is allowed to post on? Who owns the internet/websites? How is the internet controlled? Some sites have moderators and some sites are individually controlled. It would be impossible for any one person to control, the internet and all websites it contains. Who would establish the people and groups that are allowed to control the internet? How would it be controlled? Would it been kept to appropriate content and no hate speech?

7. All personal information required online should remain private.
All personal information includes but is not limited to: social security numbers, credit card numbers, passwords, addresses, etc. Some websites require certain information to set up an account such as match.com, chemistry.com, paypal.com. All of these sites require a credit card number and personal information to use all services of the site. Colleges require social security numbers, addresses and other information to apply to schools online. Now it’s almost necessary to apply online, the costs are cheaper and it’s easier to handle an online document. The incentives to apply online outweigh the risks that are taken to apply. If a site or company can promise that this information will either be erased or stored where it can never be accessed, it would make using the internet safer and more comfortable for its users.

8. Privacy should be a concern by all users when using the internet.
This extends farther than the previous statement. When using a company email address, there are risks that are taken because the corporation has the authority of monitoring the emails being transacted. Secure sites also need to be monitored. When being required to enter personal information, some people have created fake sites that look real and use these to steal information. By looking for the lock or the https at the beginning of a web address it can make it easier to identify fake websites. Each person using the internet for whatever purpose needs to be made aware of the consequences of entering any form of information. Precautions need to be taken to insure the maximum security. This is not a call to be overly cautious, just be aware of your surroundings.

9. Music sharing should be free and allowed.
Contrary to the claims of the music industry, the royalties that the music industry makes each year does not significantly decrease when music is shared between peers. After the rise of Napster, it was said that music sales remained the same or increased because people were able to sample music and then choose to purchase it. Shows are available free to watch online. The consumer is not required to buy a box set of their favorite tv show, they can view the episodes for free online. If a music sharing program allowed ads to help keep it running, it wouldn’t cause too much disruption. The fact people are being taken to court for sharing or downloading music is unnecessary. The film and music industries control more money than most any other industry. Let us be consumers, and sample free music then choose how we spend our money; don’t take it from us!

10. The internet should not be censored.
With the concept of free speech, censoring written documentation online can be a hard thing to do. There are too many sites to control and there will always be an outlet. The one concern of not censoring the internet is that children also have access to the internet. We cannot allow children to be influenced by someone’s views or opinions, or by someone’s inappropriate website. There needs to be some type of censorship put into place. A parent can attempt to control their child’s use of the internet, but will not be present for every moment their child is logged online. With the ability of children and their knowledge of technology it is hard to monitor their use.

11. Privacy settings, company regulations, and other information regarding email ought to be simple and easily accessible for users.
Companies should inform their employees of their responsibilities when using their email accounts. Each employee should understand that their emails may and are being monitored and that if they are caught either sending personal emails or visiting sites outside of what their job needs, they could be written up or terminated depending on the severity. If an employee ever needs to be reminded of these company policies, it should be available at all times. There are generally reminders at the signature section of an email, but it should also be available to an employee either in a memo, brochure, or some other form of written communication.

12. All forum and chat room-based websites must require users to provide valid registration information.
There are some chat rooms and forums that do not require registration. It’s possible these forums also have some questionable content. By requiring users to provide information, it could help protect the innocence of a child. How could someone enforce valid registration? Any person can pick a random birthday or create an alias; there is no all-knowing database to say otherwise. It would be too much of a security risk to require some other information such as a credit card number or a social security number. It may not be possible to put these types of restrictions and have a users continue to use the service.