Ethics

AoIR has an ongoing commitment to ensuring that research on and about the Internet is conducted in an ethical and professional manner. The Ethics Working Committee, as composed of ethicists and researchers from various regions and countries, has produced three major reports to assist researchers in making ethical decisions in their research:

• 2019: Internet Research: Ethical Guidelines 3.0 [PDF]
• 2012: Ethical decision-making and Internet research 2.0: Recommendations from the AoIR ethics working committee [PDF]
• 2012: This chart provides a useful starting point for internet researchers to consider ethics.
• 2002: Ethical decision-making and Internet research: Recommendations from the AoIR ethics working committee [PDF]

Researchers, students, ethicists, and related institutional bodies and academic organizations in the domain of Internet research may turn to these ethics document as a starting point for their inquiries and reflection. Just as these documents were immeasurably enriched by comments and contributions from AoIR members, we hope that readers will continue to call attention to issues and resources in Internet research ethics for debate and deliberation by the ethics working committee.

Ethics Committee Chairs:

• Michael Zimmer, Marquette University, USA
• Ylva Hård af Segerstad, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
• Anja Bechmann, Aarhus University, Denmark