Friday, May 6, 2016 - 9:50 am to 10:20 am
Websites "are sometimes used as social science laboratories - often without telling their subjects", according to a New York Times article posted on July 28, 2014. Online experimentation (A/B testing) is a common practice for many of today's internet products and services. By conducting online experiments with existing or potential customers, companies can identify improvements to their online service that are backed by statistical evidence. While this is beneficial for consumers from the perspective of accessing high-quality, ever-improving services, it also raises some ethical questions: Are consumers adequately aware of their participation in online experiments? How should other principles that have been formalized for human subjects research - such as beneficence and justice - apply to the online product world, where most experiments are trivial by comparison? This talk will explore how ethical considerations may (or may not) pertain to a variety of online product experiments.
