Anonymity and software agents: An interdisciplinary challenge

Abstract

Software agents that play a role in E-commerce and E-government applications involving the Internet often contain information about the identity of their human user such as credit cards and bank accounts. This paper discusses whether this is necessary: whether human users and software agents are allowed to be anonymous under the relevant legal regimes and whether an adequate interaction and balance between law and anonymity can be realised from both the perspective of Computer Systems and the perspective of Law.

Entanglements in Practice: Performing Anonymity Through Social Media

“…All of these have vital material grounds, not only in terms of laws and norms, but through processes of birthing, naming, and certification, involving bodies, signatures, records, images, passports, and the like. Set in an increasingly complex environment and traditionally dominated by ethical and legal discourse, a growing dissatisfaction with the state of disparate definitions in the key areas of scholarship, policy and corporate positioning has led to recent calls to approach the study of anonymity as an "interdisciplinary challenge" (Brazier et al 2004).…”

“…1 While some regard online anonymity as "a necessary tool" to preserve "informational privacy" (Brazier et al 2004), others believe that it creates an environment for defamation, hate speech and juvenile levels of responsibility (Levmore and Nussbaum 2010). If users post reviews in an environment where they are not held to account in any meaningful way, a process of "deindividuation" (Zimbardo 1969, Christopherson 2007 can emerge in their practices.…”

“…For example, there is no legal right to anonymity (Brazier et al 2004), and the law regarding unveiling an anonymous person varies from country to country.…”

“…Despite discussions that have spanned a multitude of technological developments -such as software code (Lessig 1999), databases and classification systems (Bowker and Star 1999), cookies and personal computers (Elmer 2004), and online search engines (Introna and Nissenbaum 2000) -attempts to integrate values and ethics into the design of technologies have been slow and generally criticized (Manders-Huits 2010). Brazier et al (2004) note that correlations between design requirements for software agents and the law are complex:…”

Partial identities as a foundation for trust and reputation

“…Anonymity also plays a crucial role for preserving privacy [28]. Anonymity is characterized by the fact that an agent can interact with other parties in a form that these other parties do not know the identity of the agent [24].…”