Analyzing Ethical Issues of ITC: Net Neutrality and Ethical Theories

This essay examines the ethical issues surrounding Information and Communication Technology (ITC), with a specific focus on net neutrality. It introduces the concept of net neutrality and its importance in the context of open internet access. The paper then analyzes net neutrality through the lenses of various ethical theories, including Utilitarianism, Deontology, Virtue Theory, and Contract Theory. It discusses the pros and cons of net neutrality from a Utilitarian perspective, considering financial burdens, globalization, innovation, censorship, and privacy. The essay also explores the ethical duties and social and economic arguments against net neutrality using Deontology. Furthermore, it delves into Virtue Theory, emphasizing virtues of mind and character and its implications in the ITC field. Finally, the paper touches upon Contract Theory, highlighting the contractual arrangements and ethical considerations between service providers and users. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of ethical use of ITC for a safe and equitable information society.

Running Head: ETHICAL ISSUES OF ITC
Ethical Issues in Open Internet- Net Neutrality
Assignment 3: Applying Ethical Theory
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ETHICAL ISSUES OF ITC
Introduction
In today’s generation the Internet has already changed the way of accessing on the internet. In
the current scenario it has become essential to have the internet service providers and the
internet services provided by the government. It is essential that the internet users must treat
all the usability of the data on the internet. It is the basic principle that has been forbid by the
Internet Service Providers to slow down or blocking of the unwanted cites. It enables to
access all the content an applications regardless of the source (Beck et al., 2016). The
organisation has the appropriate principles to be followed by the Net Neutrality that is been
mentioned in the European Law that no blocking or Reducing the speed of the internet
intentionally by the Internet Service Provider so as to stop the application process. The
people of the Europe have full rights to access to the open internet and they should be given
the priority to provide facility of accessing to the internet services via high quality networks.
Net Neutrality has come up with an idea of open fair and free internet accessibility
(Fleischmann et al., 2015).
1. Utilitarianism Theory-
From a Utilitarian Point of view, there are many people from the European parties which
are impacted by the decision made of net neutrality. Generally, it is dependable on
whether the decision made would be in their support and will benefit or will damage the
main causes. The main Pros of Net Neutrality:
 Financial Burden- It totally depends that if the ISPs were charging the huge amount on
the heavy usage of the bandwidth. That it would be thoughtful that who will bear the cost
whether the website owners or the public. If Public was to be charged on this than, the
access to the internet would provide more information with the dedicated speed and for
this, users have to pay more cost which tends to build the communication gap. And if the
website was to be charged than it is most essential that the e-commerce tool should be
carried out. As the companies are working there and utilizing the more websites as free
medium of source to promote their products and services. For this companies are given
the priority for charging the extra amount for accessing to the internet (Fleischmann et al.,
2017).
 Globalization- Net Neutrality is connected to a free market. It permits globally and
specially to the new start-ups to compete with the current business in the market without
being distinguished. It works on to progress made drastically with the net neutrality.
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 Innovation and Creativity- Net Neutrality emboldens to the greater competency and it
sometimes becomes an ethical issue being arise doing the innovation. For the innovation,
public have full rights to share or express their views and ideas on websites, such as
Personal Blogs or their own commercial web sites.
 Censorship-ISPs have the full rights to control over the internet for censoring and filtering
all the web sites according to their rules and regulations and strategies they imply for the
companies to hold.
 Privacy- ISPs can monitor everything that their customers are accessing over the net. All
the activities made by the customers are been monitored to have the information being
collected from the customers usage (Shin et al., 2017).
2. Deontology Theory-
Deontology theory can be termed as those ethical duties which need to be followed for the
normal ethical position that is basically judged on the basis of action based rules. It is been
expressed on the basis of duties or obligations been made to bind the duty. It mainly focuses
on the right and wrong human actions. Deontology theory generally talks about the social and
economic arguments against the net neutrality instruction. It generally regulate on the worse
consequences that leads to internet to unregulated relatively (Marsden, 2016). According to
this theory net neutrality regulation is itself partial. One major assumption been made is on
the both the ISPs and the customers to which both parties are been subscribed to the rules
which to be followed. This would not occur if the ISPs have promised to provide the
accessibility to the customers for full internet but they block some parts of the internet sites.
So this is being unjust to the customers. Basically it is not providing the full rights to the
customers so ISPs are withdrawn by its agreement. These scenarios are basically become the
major issue for this they have full rights according to the system of laws and contracts to
punish those sort of faults (Arasa, 2017).
3. Virtue Theory-
This theory basically emphasize on the virtues of mind and character. Virtue Ethics in terms
of professionalism discuss about the nature and the character of virtues and other related
problems. It mainly examines on how the virtues are been applied in real life. It is the
continuing idea with a prehistoric root. In historical period the ethical philosophy was earlier
known as the virtue ethics (Souza et al., 2017). It is basically imply for the neither to rule nor
to make any significances. The mainly acceptable things for the virtues are a free religious
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ETHICAL ISSUES OF ITC
terminology or implications. These make things free from the acceptance to the secular
world. By following the virtue Ethics in an organization we can supply a means of adopting
and incorporating rules into a person’s performance, making them more active. It is generally
a powerful way of emphasizing towards the guidelines and regulations of an organization by
translating them into inherent motivation. A practical solution of virtual ethics in IT is the
practicality and simplicity. It can be formulated in simple terms that are engaging to the most
of the employees in an organization. It is an independent to the belief of the systems to accept
it and is been incorporated into codes of conduct for organizations.
4. Contract Theory-
It describe as, how the economic performers can do and create the contractual arrangements
which is been presentable in the form of the asymmetric information. In this theory the
ethical issues being described on the basis of the communication between the agencies and
the inducements. It is basically the way of doing the business on an individual basis which
generally develops the legal agreements between both the connections. According to the net
neutrality, protections are a must for rising of the strong endorsements socially (Taddeo,
2017). The contract or the justice theory is the exceptional one than can be applied without
any significance of broadening it. Generally in this case the ISPs do seem in the power and
the position. For the contract side of the theory, the end operators and the application
providers have agreed to pay the respective amount of the internet connectivity. The various
ISPs also have the agreements among themselves for peeing of the connection. If they do not
have the bandwidth for the connection to provide then the firms and individuals should not
promise for the service on which they are unable to provide (Schmidt et al., 2017).
Conclusion
The Ethical Issues in ITC are the mainly biggest problems being faced globally and to
overcome from all these problems it is essential to have the proper Ethical use of information
and communication technologies that are supportable for the development in an impartial
information, society need a safe environment for all the people in terms of the application of
human rights. It basically consider with the main consequences and the actions that is being
liable. It is a prime duty to provide the security to the people to its certain level (Marsden,
2016). There are cases where the Net Neutrality would not be a good idea. But for the limited
accessing of a Net Neutrality with the exceptions such as the ISPs are able to block the
malicious activities which are harmful for the various sites, business and government
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organizations are able to limit the network they usually access and other exclusions which
need to be work on to find the valid exceptions for the general ideologies and moralities of
Network Neutrality (Ford, 2017).
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References
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