592 Part IV • The Information Management System
Discussion Questions
1.Suppose you are the victim of an identity thief who continues
to use your identity and to ruin your credit rating after you
have discovered the problem. What problems do you have in
clearing your name? How could the laws be changed to help
you in this process?
2.Some people believe that “access to computers should be un-
limited and total” and that “all information should be free.”
Do you agree with these statements? Why or why not?
3.Spam on the Internet is a growing problem. Why is spam so
attractive to some marketers? To what degree can spam be
controlled by laws? Are there other ways that spam might be
controlled? How?
4.What do we mean by “intellectual property”? What are the
differences between intellectual property and real property?
Should someone be able to own intellectual property? Why
or why not?
5.The U.S. Patent Office is granting patents on computer
processes such as Amazon’s “one-click ordering.” Should
patents be granted on such computer-supported business
processes? Why or why not?6.In your opinion, what is the most important social issue
raised by the pervasiveness of IT? Why? How can society
best deal with this issue?
7.The RIAA asserts that downloading copyrighted music on
the Internet without paying for it is stealing, but lots of peo-
ple are doing it. Is this ethical? Why or why not? If this is not
ethical, why are so many people doing it?
8.In the United States, information that a company collects
about the customer is legally the company’s property. In the
European Union, this information is the individual’s property.
Explain why there is this difference in the legal treatment of
this information.
9.In order to protect against terrorists, the U.S. government is
collecting more and more data on individuals into comprehen-
sive databases. Have you any concerns about this? Why or why
not?
10.Although this practice might invade individual privacy, many
companies use IT to measure the quality and quantity of an
employee’s work. Discuss the ethical implications of this
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