Use the 'Internet' as an example of a technological development and indicate briefly what the moral and ethical issues raised are?

Internet has made the job of distance communication very fast, convenient and economical for individuals as well as for large organization. Because of this Internet is becoming the most important means of communication used by individuals for their personal communication and for businesses for their marketing communications. The major ethical and moral issues raised by the technological capabilities of the Internet and its widespread use include the issues of privacy, confidentiality, and freedom of information dissemination. In addition, the use of Internet also affects the issues of intellectual property rights by making it very easy for people to infringe upon these.

Reducing cost and increasing convenience of Internet communication has provides additional value to the customers. At the same time it has also created the nuisance of unwanted spam mails and excessive advertisements. Also confidentiality of individuals and organizations is very much threatened as technology has made it possible do collect and analyse data on the personal information about the Internet users very easily.

Another important issue is that of easy availability of all types of information products available on the Internet. It becomes very difficult to regulate individuals, and particularly younger people getting access to material that may not be fit for them , and may incite wrong kind of sexual or criminal behavior among such people.

Finally another problem is that of violation of intellectual property rights. In some cases the moral issues are not very clear. For example, though the Internet technology has made it very economical to make copies of music and distribute on a large scale. However the companies holding copyrights for music, have tried to retain for themselves the benefit of technology, keep the price of music sold very high. This is also one kind of hoarding. AS a result many consumers groups responded by free distributing music free on the Internet. The issues of ethics in this respect are open to wide interpretations.