This essay examines some ethical aspects of stalkingincidents in cyberspace. Particular attention is focused on the Amy Boyer/Liam Youens case of cyberstalking, which has raised a number of controversial ethical questions. We limit our analysis to three issues involving this particular case. First, we suggest that the privacy of stalking victims is threatened because of the unrestricted access to on-linepersonal information, including on-line public records, currently available to stalkers. Second, we consider issues involving moral responsibility and legal liability for Internet (...) service providers (ISPs) when stalking crimesoccur in their `space' on the Internet. Finally, we examine issues of moral responsibility for ordinary Internet users to determine whether they are obligated to inform persons whom they discover to be the targets of cyberstalkers. (shrink)

Many attempts to define privacy have been made over the last century. Early definitions and theories of privacy had little to do with the concept of information and, when they did, only in an informal sense. With the advent of information technology, the question of a precise and universally acceptable definition of privacy in this new domain became an urgent issue as legal and business problems regarding privacy started to accrue. In this paper, I propose a definition of informational privacy (...) that is simple, yet strongly tied with the concepts of information and property. Privacy thus defined is similar to intellectual property and should receive commensurate legal protection. (shrink)

Many attempts to define privacy have been made since the publication of the seminal paper by Warren and Brandeis (Warren & Brandeis, 1890). Early definitions and theories of privacy had little to do with the concept of information and, when they did, only in an informal sense. With the advent of information technology, the question of a precise and universally acceptable definition of privacy became an urgent issue as legal and business problems regarding privacy started to accrue. In this paper, (...) we propose a definition of privacy that is simple, yet strongly tied with the concepts of information and property. We show that privacy thus defined is not only useful in the context of the infosphere, but can also be successfully applied in its more traditional role as the ‘right to be let alone’. (shrink)