from the author -- Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest consumers

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Edelman, Benjamin" <bedelman () hbs edu>
Date: March 2, 2009 8:35:54 AM EST
To: "dave () farber net" <dave () farber net>
Subject: RE: [IP] Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest consumers

Dave,

I wrote the underlying paper being discussed in this thread.  For  
anyone interested in the full paper, not just news coverage thereof,  
it's at http://people.hbs.edu/bedelman/papers/redlightstates.pdf .

To your readers' questions about privacy protections: The data I  
received had very few fields -- just zip code, date of subscription,  
and a very little bit of information about purchase (subscription  
duration, whether a new subscription).  No names, no email addresses,  
no street addresses, no credit card numbers, nothing in that vein.

Brock's privacy concerns are well-taken in the abstract, and I share  
his general concerns.  But I don't think those concerns have much bite  
given the limited data I received.  To his question about the quality  
of the data-processing: My data source provided this data correctly,  
promptly, and just as described above.


Ben Edelman


-----Original Message-----
From: James Grimmelmann [mailto:james.grimmelmann () gmail com] On Behalf  
Of James Grimmelmann
Sent: Monday, March 02, 2009 8:18 AM
To: Ben Edelman
Subject: Fwd: [IP] Re: Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest  
consumers

You might want to respond to this conversation taking place on Dave
Farber's list.  I read your paper to say that you got a multiset of
zip codes and nothing else, but others are making some ungenerous
assumptions about the privacy protections of your research methods.

James


Begin forwarded message:

> From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
> Date: March 2, 2009 1:51:50 AM EST
> To: "ip" <ip () v2 listbox com>
> Subject: [IP] Re:   Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest
> consumers
> Reply-To: dave () farber net
>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Peter Swire <peter () peterswire net>
> Date: March 1, 2009 10:12:42 PM EST
> To: "dave () farber net" <dave () farber net>
> Subject: RE: [IP] Re:    Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest
> consumers
>
> Brock Meeks asks very good questions, which essentially boil down to
> this -- was the research done consistent with strong privacy
> protections?
>
> As Brock and many readers of this list know, there have been painful
> episodes where data was released for research purposes in the belief
> that privacy was protected.  Then, the data was linked to an
> individual.  One example was when AOL released the records of online
> searches, and a number of the indviduals were identified.  As a more
> general matter, LaTanya Sweeney and others have shown that
> "deidentified" data can often be "reidentified."
>
> On the other hand, research is often a Good Thing.  In the medical
> realm, research can go forward consistent with the HIPAA privacy
> rule in several ways -- consent by the patient, deidentification,
> approval by the Institutional Review Board, or subject to a data use
> agreement.
>
> Other privacy laws, and many privacy policies, do not have any
> similar path to conducting research.
>
> I think policymakers, and readers of this list, should want to
> accomplish the Good Thing of research and the Good Thing of privacy
> when possible.  As a rough guide, the following should be considered:
>
> 1. Release data to researchers in truly deidentified form.  That may
> have happened in the porn study, if the data was kept at the zip
> code level.  (Then again, the list of credit card purchases may be
> like the AOL list of search terms -- some purchases or search terms
> are idiosyncratic enough that, combined with public records, the
> person can be identified.)
>
> 2. Consider creating Institutional Review Boards or the equivalent
> so that good practices are followed.  It is true that IRBs can be a
> bureaucratic burden.  But they also are an institutional mechanism
> to come up with protocols that meet good standards.
>
> 3. Consider releasing the data under data use agreements that bind
> the researchers.  In this way, the researcher breaches a contract if
> names or other personal data are released outside the scope of the
> permitted research.
>
> Steps such as these can help us get useful research while also
> protecting individuals against privacy invasions they can't control.
>
> Peter
>
> Prof. Peter P. Swire
> C. William O'Neill Professor of Law
> Moritz College of Law of the Ohio State University
> Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
> (240) 994.4142, www.peterswire.net
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
> Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2009 6:02 PM
> To: ip
> Subject: [IP] Re: Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest consumers
>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: "Brock N. Meeks" <bmeeks () cox net>
> Date: March 1, 2009 1:50:27 PM EST
> To: <dave () farber net>, <jwarren () well com>
> Subject: Re: [IP] Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest consumers
>
> Leaving the original <ahem> thrust of this message aside, my foremost
> question was "how did the researcher obtain this data?"
>
> I've known Jim Warren for a couple of decades and I know how he values
> privacy, which is why I'm curious as to why Jim didn't raise the
> subject
> himself.
>
> In the New Scientist article, we read the researcher has a client that
> runs
> adult entertainment web sites and that this company provided the
> researcher
> "with roughly two years of credit card data from 2006 to 2008 that
> included
> a purchase date and each customer's postal code."
>
> Say what?  I'm sure the last thing these subscribers thought their
> credit
> card info would be used for was any kind of social behavior study.
>
> Perhaps the "privacy" policies of such web sites informed subscribers
> that
> such a use of their information would be possible (I've not studied
> the
> privacy policies of such web sites, I just look at the pictures...
> Wait...)
>
> If say, oh, for example, the Airline industry, turned over this kind
> of
> "anonymized"  credit card data to homeland security for a study of
> (whatever) I think Jim would be more than a bit concerned.
>
> Now, I suppose such a hypothetical sets up a comparison as to who is
> the
> more trustworthy:  the adult entertainment industry, the researcher,
> the
> airline industry or Uncle Sam.  I leave that debate to more informed
> colleagues.
>
> --Brock
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 3/1/09 10:21 AM, "David Farber" <dave () farber net> wrote:
>
> > Begin forwarded message:
> >
> > From: Jim Warren <jwarren () well com>
> > Date: February 28, 2009 4:27:59 PM EST
> > To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
> > Subject: Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest consumers
> >
> > From the New Scientist - http://bit.ly/ZkOq
> > 27 February 2009 by Ewen Callaway
> >
> > Americans may paint themselves in increasingly bright shades of red
> > and blue, but new research finds one thing that varies little across
> > the nation: the liking for online pornography.
> >
> > A new nationwide study (pdf) of anonymised credit-card receipts
> > from a
> > major online adult entertainment provider finds little variation in
> > consumption between states.
> >
> > "When it comes to adult entertainment, it seems people are more the
> > same than different," says Benjamin Edelman at Harvard Business
> > School.
> >
> > However, there are some trends to be seen in the data. Those states
> > that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and
> > religious than states with lower levels of consumption, the study
> > finds.
> >
> > ...<big snip>...
>
>
>
>
>
>
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