The Ethics of Research in Cyberspace

As computers, the Internet, online digital resources, and eventually the National Information Infrastructure become increasingly important in our lives, the study of the use of these technologies has become one of the fastest growing areas in social science. This research is important,but, like any kind of social science involving the study of human subjects, it raises questions of ethics and human dignity. Most major research universities have guidelines for this kind of scholarship,based on the Nuremberg Code and/or the Belmont Principles. But research in cyberspace was clearly not on the minds of those drafting these guidelines. Some of the difficulties produced by this tension between traditional guidelines and new technologies are discussed.