Choose one of the following ACM Code of Ethics case studies: Please no Plagiarism, No AI. no chat bots original response please
In your post:
- State which case you chose.
Provide a brief summary of the situation in your own words. - Identify one or two ACM Code of Ethics principles that apply.
Explain why these principles are relevant to the case in 4 sentences. - Create three guiding questions that will help your classmates analyze the case.
- Technical question: Focus on design decisions, system configuration, or implementation.
- Ethical question: Focus on professional responsibility or competing values.
- Stakeholder-impact question: Focus on who benefits, who might be harmed, or whose interests may be overlooked.
Example question types (do not copy):
- Technical: What design or configuration decision increased risk in this case, and what alternative approach might reduce that risk?
- Ethical: Which ACM Code principle should take priority in this situation and why?
- Stakeholders: Which group of stakeholders may experience the greatest impact from this decision?
Spring 2026 Term
Week Five: Readings
Week Five Reading
Ethics for Tech Developers and Tech Consumers
This week, we focus on ethical responsibilities from two connected perspectives: technology consumers and technology professionals. You will read about issues such as privacy, data collection, informed consent, intellectual property, bias, environmental impact, professional codes of conduct, and everyday ethical decision-making. By the end of the reading, you should be able to explain how ethical responsibilities apply not only to developers and IT professionals, but also to ordinary users of technology in daily life.
Reading Tips
Use the guiding questions to support your reading.
The guiding questions are there to help you focus on key ideas, not just memorize examples. Use them to:
- Identify where the reading explains the ethical responsibilities of both tech consumers and tech professionals.
- Notice how the reading connects personal choices, professional codes, and larger social impacts.
- Prepare for discussion by considering how your own experiences with technology shape your ethical views.
Other reading strategies you can include:
- Preview the reading before diving inscan headings and key terms first.
- Engage criticallyask yourself: What responsibilities do I have as both a user and possible creator of technology?
- Relate the material to real lifethink about apps, devices, online platforms, or services you already use.
- Take notes in your own words so you can better track how consumer ethics and professional ethics overlap.
- Use this to help you take notes.
Week 5 Reading: Ethics for Tech Developers and Tech Consumers
Tech Consumer Responsibilities
Considering the typical audience for this course, nearly everyone reading this reading is a consumer of technology. Think about how many digital tools you interact with throughout a typical day. You may check your smartphone for messages, browse social media, stream music or video, play games, complete schoolwork on a laptop, collaborate using cloud-based tools, or track health data through wearable devices. Technology is embedded in how people communicate, learn, work, and entertain themselves.
Because technology is so deeply integrated into everyday life, consumers also face ethical questions. The reading introduces several key areas where consumers should think critically about their responsibilities and choices.
- Protecting personal privacy and data Do you know where your personal information is stored and who has access to it? Does every service that collects data truly need that information?
- Awareness of data collection Do users have meaningful control over what data companies collect and how it is shared, sold, or analyzed?
- Informed consent When you accept terms of service, are you knowingly agreeing to what happens to your information? Can you change your mind later?
- Recognizing unethical companies Do you ever investigate whether companies engage in discriminatory or unfair practices, and does that influence whether you support them?
- Respecting intellectual property Do actions such as pirating software, music, or games have ethical implications? Does it matter whose work is being copied?
- Social and environmental impacts What happens to devices when they are replaced? Does consumer demand contribute to electronic waste or environmental harm?
- Technology and bias Some digital systems, such as facial recognition or recommendation algorithms, may amplify bias or exclude certain groups. How might everyday user behavior reinforce these patterns?
Thinking about these questions helps individuals move beyond passive technology use and become more thoughtful digital citizens who understand the broader consequences of their choices.
Key Idea
Consumers influence the technology ecosystem through the platforms they use, the companies they support, the data they share, and the behaviors they normalize online.
Technology Career Roles and Professional Ethics
For students entering technology careers, ethical concerns expand beyond consumer behavior. If you choose to pursue a technology career, you may work in roles such as:
- Software Engineer
- Data Scientist
- Cybersecurity Analyst
- Systems Administrator
- Network Architect
- Cloud Architect
- UI/UX Designer
- DevOps Manager
- AI Computer Scientist
- IT Support Specialist
In these roles, your work may affect customers, coworkers, vendors, employers, and the general public. That means ethical responsibility becomes part of your daily professional practice. In these roles, professionals have ethical relationships with employers, customers, coworkers, vendors, and the wider public.
When working in these careers, you will interact with many different people who each bring their own expectations and perspectives. Conflicts can arise when these perspectives clash or when different groups prioritize different outcomes. A company may prioritize secrecy, efficiency, or profit, while customers may prioritize truthfulness, safety, and trust. Ethical practice therefore requires more than technical skill. It requires judgment, reflection, and the willingness to evaluate competing interests carefully.
Think of all of the people that you will have an ethical relationship with as a part of your technology-based profession. This diagram represents some of the main relationships you will experience in your IT careers.
Often, the details of these relationships may be spelled out (at least partially) via various relationship agreements. These agreements can take many forms (i.e. contracts, non-disclosure agreements, license agreements, professional codes of conduct, etc.) with many of these forms having both ethical and legal ramifications. But at other times, the details of the relationships are not spelled out at all! And, as a result, conflicts can certainly arise when it becomes evident that there are competing interests being considered and viewed through conflicting personal lenses.
Reviewing the is great starting point for considering the additional ethical responsibilities of a tech. This document attempts to codify the ethical responsibilities of tech professionals. Such codes helps practitioners think more intentionally about public welfare, honesty, transparency, privacy, accountability, competence, and fairness.
Case Study: Apple Batterygate
Let’s explore these tensions through the Apple Batterygate case. In 2020, Apple agreed to pay $113 million to settle consumer fraud lawsuits related to older iPhones being slowed down or shutting off unexpectedly. Apple later said the performance changes were intended to preserve battery life, but many consumers believed the company had not been honest about what it was doing and that the changes pushed users toward buying newer devices.
This case raises ethical questions about transparency, planned obsolescence, corporate responsibility, and environmental harm. From the companys perspective, the pressure to maintain sales growth may encourage decisions that benefit profits. From the customers perspective, the issue may look like deception, loss of trust, and unnecessary electronic waste. From the employees perspective, the case introduces deeper professional questions: what should a developer, marketer, customer service worker, or salesperson do if they are asked to participate in practices they believe are unethical?
Key Idea
The same technology decision can look very different depending on whether it is viewed through the lens of executives, employees, customers, or the broader public.
Think About It
If you worked at a company and were asked to support a practice that was legal but felt deceptive or harmful, what factors would shape your response? Would your answer change depending on your role in the organization?
Different Perspectives in the Apple Case
When looking at the Apple “Batterygate” situation, the ethical issues can look very different depending on a person’s role. Thinking about these perspectives helps you understand why technology ethics often involves competing priorities.
Apple Executive Perspective
An executive may focus on maintaining product sales and market growth. If older devices continue working well, fewer customers may purchase newer models. From this viewpoint, decisions may prioritize company strategy, intellectual property protection, and long-term competitiveness.
Apple Customer Perspective
A customer may see the issue differently. If a phone suddenly becomes slow or shuts down, the user may feel misled or believe the company intentionally degraded the product. Customers may expect transparency, reliability, and honesty about how their devices function.
Technology Employee Perspective
Employees inside the company may face difficult ethical decisions. Developers might be asked to build software that intentionally slows devices. Marketing teams might be asked to promote upgrades even if the messaging feels exaggerated. Customer service staff may be expected to provide explanations they know are incomplete. These situations can create tension between workplace expectations and personal ethical values.
Think About It
If you were working at a technology company and discovered a practice that felt deceptive or harmful to users, what options would you have? Would your response depend on your role or your job security? Review the policies from or any other company to help you understand thier ethical practices.
Stockholders vs. Stakeholders
In technology organizations, a common ethical conflict appears between: the difference between stockholders and stakeholders. Stockholders, or shareholders, own part of a company and are mainly concerned with financial returns such as stock value and dividends. Stakeholders are a broader group that includes employees, customers, suppliers, and local communities, all of whom are affected by company decisions even if they do not own shares.
These groups do not always want the same things. Stockholders may prioritize short-term profitability, while stakeholders may be more concerned with product quality, long-term stability, ethical treatment, privacy, job security, environmental responsibility, and social impact. The reading suggests that corporate leaders often prioritize stockholder interests, even when those priorities conflict with the well-being of other groups.
Understanding this distinction helps explain why ethical conflicts arise so frequently in technology organizations. It also shows why professional codes and personal ethics matter: they can provide guidance when business incentives push individuals toward choices that may harm others.
Company Codes of Conduct
In addition to professional codes such as the ACM Code, many organizations adopt their own internal codes of conduct. The as an example of a company that publicly shares its code of conduct and clearly defines expectations for employees, customers, and vendors.
Topics covered in such codes often include leadership obligations, intellectual property, conflicts of interest, gifts, bribery, insider trading, anti-corruption laws, and harassment. Importantly, company codes may also define procedures for reporting concerns through supervisors, human resources, ethics committees, hotlines, or anonymous reporting tools.
These policies matter because they make ethical expectations more visible and provide practical ways for people to respond when problems arise. Comparing a company code of conduct with a broader professional code can also help individuals see where the two align and where they differ.
Why This Matters
A code of conduct is not just a formal document. It can shape workplace culture, clarify expectations, and provide real pathways for reporting and resolving ethical concerns.
Company Codes of Conduct
Many organizations publish their own codes of conduct to define expectations for employees and business partners. These documents explain ethical standards, professional responsibilities, and procedures for reporting concerns.
The code of conduct published by the company behind Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental, and Alamo. Their code outlines expectations related to leadership behavior, conflicts of interest, intellectual property, harassment policies, anti-corruption laws, and insider trading.
Enterprise also provides multiple ways for employees to report ethical concerns, including supervisors, human resources, ethics committees, and a confidential ethics hotline that is available 24 hours a day.
Example Resource:
Why This Matters
Codes of conduct make ethical expectations visible and provide clear pathways for employees to report concerns. Comparing company policies with professional codes such as the ACM Code of Ethics can help you understand how organizations attempt to translate ethical principles into real workplace practices.
Everyday Decision-Making and Personal Ethics
Think about what all of this means for everyday life. Ethical choices in technology are not limited to famous scandals or corporate policy documents. They also appear in ordinary moments: what services we support, how we treat others online, how we respond to questionable requests, and how consistently we live according to our values.
What about your own personal code of ethics. What values guide your decisions? Which areas of your ethical thinking feel clearly defined, and which feel uncertain or situational? What happens when your own values conflict with expectations from school, work, family, religion, culture, or community? Can a person change their ethical position over time, and if so, under what conditions?
The reading does not provide one fixed answer. Instead, it invites intentional reflection. Its purpose is to help you become more aware of the principles, conflicts, and responsibilities that shape ethical decision-making in both personal and professional interactions with technology.
Pause and Reflect
If you were to write your own personal code of ethics for technology use and professional practice, what principles would you include first? Which principles might be hardest to apply consistently?
Key Terms
- ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct A widely recognized professional code that outlines ethical responsibilities for computing professionals.
- accessibility Designing technology usable by people of varied abilities.
- accountability Being responsible for decisions and outcomes.
- anti-corruption laws Laws designed to prevent bribery, fraud, and unethical influence in business and government.
- audit trail A record of actions taken within a system.
- bias Systematic error that unfairly influences results.
- bribe Something of value offered to influence a decision or action for the givers benefit.
- conflict of interest A situation in which personal interests interfere with the ability to make fair and unbiased decisions.
- fairness Ensuring equitable treatment and outcomes.
- gift Something of value given without an expectation of return or influence.
- harassment Unwelcome conduct that creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment.
- informed consent Knowing and voluntarily agreeing to how information, rights, or choices are handled.
- insider trading Buying or selling securities based on material, nonpublic information.
- integrity Honesty and trustworthiness of data and systems.
- intellectual property Creations of the mind that are legally protected, such as software, music, writing, inventions, or designs.
- personal code of ethics An individuals own set of guiding principles for making moral and professional decisions.
- planned obsolescence Designing products to become outdated, undesirable, or less functional over time so consumers will replace them.
- privacy A persons right to control information about themselves.
- professional code of conduct A formal set of ethical standards that helps guide the behavior of members of a profession.
- stakeholder Any person or group affected by a companys decisions, including employees, customers, suppliers, and communities.
- stockholder A person or institution that owns shares in a company and is primarily concerned with financial return.
- tech consumer A person who uses digital devices, apps, platforms, or online services in daily life.
- transparency Clear explanation of what a system does and why.
- whistleblower Someone who reports wrongdoing despite personal risk.