Business analytics generated data brokerage: Law, ethical and social issues

Abstract

Today’s fast growing big data and business analytics are introducing changes for which laws and rules of acceptable conduct have not yet been developed. Increasing computing power, storage, and networking capabilities, including the Internet and the IoT, expand the reach of individual and organizational actions and magnify their impacts. The ease and anonymity with which information is now communicated, copied, and manipulated in the cyber environments pose new challenges to the protection of privacy and intellectual property. The main ethical, social, and political issues, raised by business analytics generated information brokers, center around information rights and obligations, property rights and obligations, accountability and control, system quality, and quality of life. In this research, we investigate the key elements and compare the E.U. and U.S. law framework for the emerging social problem of analytical information brokerage.