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Linking Platforms, Practices, and Developer Ethics: Levers for Privacy Discourse in Mobile Application Development

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  • Katie Shilton

    (University of Maryland College Park)

  • Daniel Greene

    (Microsoft Research New England)

Abstract

Privacy is a critical challenge for corporate social responsibility in the mobile device ecosystem. Mobile application firms can collect granular and largely unregulated data about their consumers, and must make ethical decisions about how and whether to collect, store, and share these data. This paper conducts a discourse analysis of mobile application developer forums to discover when and how privacy conversations, as a representative of larger ethical debates, arise during development. It finds that online forums can be useful spaces for ethical deliberations, as developers use these spaces to define, discuss, and justify their values. It also discovers that ethical discussions in mobile development are prompted by work practices which vary considerably between iOS and Android, today’s two major mobile platforms. For educators, regulators, and managers interested in encouraging more ethical discussion and deliberation in mobile development, these work practices provide a valuable point of entry. But while the triggers for privacy conversations are quite different between platforms, ultimately the justifications for privacy are similar. Developers for both platforms use moral and cautionary tales, moral evaluation, and instrumental and technical rationalization to justify and legitimize privacy as a value in mobile development. Understanding these three forms of justification for privacy is useful to educators, regulators, and managers who wish to promote ethical practices in mobile development.

Suggested Citation

  • Katie Shilton & Daniel Greene, 2019. "Linking Platforms, Practices, and Developer Ethics: Levers for Privacy Discourse in Mobile Application Development," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 131-146, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:155:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s10551-017-3504-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-017-3504-8
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Stefano Brusoni & Antonino Vaccaro, 2017. "Ethics, Technology and Organizational Innovation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 143(2), pages 223-226, June.
    2. Laurence Ashworth & Clinton Free, 2006. "Marketing Dataveillance and Digital Privacy: Using Theories of Justice to Understand Consumers’ Online Privacy Concerns," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 67(2), pages 107-123, August.
    3. Will Drover & Jennifer Franczak & Richard Beltramini, 2012. "A 30-Year Historical Examination of Ethical Concerns Regarding Business Ethics: Who’s Concerned?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 111(4), pages 431-438, December.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Jacobs, Mattis & Kurtz, Christian & Simon, Judith & Böhmann, Tilo, 2021. "Value Sensitive Design and power in socio-technical ecosystems," Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin, vol. 10(3), pages 1-26.
    3. Narayan Prasad Nagendra & Gopalakrishnan Narayanamurthy & Roger Moser, 2022. "Satellite big data analytics for ethical decision making in farmer’s insurance claim settlement: minimization of type-I and type-II errors," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 315(2), pages 1061-1082, August.
    4. Kirsten Martin & Katie Shilton & Jeffery Smith, 2019. "Business and the Ethical Implications of Technology: Introduction to the Symposium," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(2), pages 307-317, December.

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