Selfregulation: Content, Legitimacy and Efficiency - Governance and Ethics

To speak about ethics in the context of the global information society seems today rather difficult. People prefer the term 'governance', and especially if it is associated with self-regulation. This paper summarises the findings of the analysis of some 40 self-regulation documents, using the same grid of analysis. The first documents are about computing and information systems in general. The following are more specialised although one can still find generic approaches. The sectoral approach gives us more precise documents. When looking at the different actors, one may say that the presence of the authorities and of the users is rather weak and that the authors could be those being protected. As the content is concerned, many often it does not go further than a reminder of namely the illegal matters, and the enumeration of relatively superficial principles of protection. Commitments are 'reasonable' and self-controlled. It seems that a strong lobby of firms engaged in eCommerce is pushing the deal. To show good will, to regret the decline of the State or to reach a more contractual approach between the different parties: Will it be satisfactory if the issue at stake is to regulate the society where we shall live, the information society, what belongs to the common good'