[Web4lib] [web4lib] survey on library website third partyanalytics privacy concerns

[Ross Singer]

On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 2:39 PM, David - <davidslistservs at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Also: neither our bosses nor the ALA determine what is right and wrong, but our
> bosses and not the ALA determine what we're going to do.  And that's a
> completely reasonable demand on their part.  If the taxpayers pay us to do X,
> it'd be wrong to take their money and do Y because the ALA says so.
>

This is true, the bosses (and whoever that may be:  university
administration, city council, person in cubicle who signs your check,
whatever) ultimately set the rules.  What the ALA guidelines can
provide, however, is a source of an articulated and reasoned argument
for ALA's ethics policies.  They might not sway the decision in the
end, but they make discussion (and rationale) much clearer.  Hopefully
we are not merely drones working for "the man" and our contributions
to decisions such as these will at least shed awareness on the
possibility that there could be privacy ramifications to the
compromises we're forced to make (and, potentially, how to address or
mitigate them).

-Ross.