Harm Imbrication and Virtualised Violence: Reconceptualising the Harms of Doxxing

This article develops a framework for analysing the harms of doxxing: the practice of publishing personal identifying information about someone on the internet, usually with malicious intent. Doxxing is not just a breach of privacy, nor are its effects limited to first‑order harms to an individual’s bodily integrity. Rather, doxxing increases the spectre of second-order harms to an individual’s security interests. To better understand these harms—and the relationships between them—we draw together the theories of Bhaskar, Deleuze and Levi to develop two concepts: the virtualisation of violence and harm imbrication. The virtualisation of violence captures how, when concretised into structures, the potential for harm can be virtualised through language, writing and digitisation. We show that doxxed information virtualises violence through constituting harm-generating structures and we analyse how the virtual harm-generating potential of these structures is actualised through first- and second-order harms against a doxxing victim. The concept of harm imbrication, by contrast, helps us to analyse the often-imbricated and supervenient relationship between harms. In doing so, it helps us explain the emergent – and supervenient – relationship between doxxing’s first- and second-order harms.

Disclosure of personal identifying information in studies of neighborhood contexts and patient outcomes. (Preprint)

UNSTRUCTURED Clinical epidemiology and patient-oriented health care research that incorporates neighborhood-level data is becoming increasingly common. A key step in conducting this research is converting patient address data to longitude and latitude data, a process known as geocoding. Several commonly used approaches to geocoding (e.g. the tidygeocoder R package) send patient addresses over the internet to online third party geocoding services. Here we describe how these approaches to geocoding disclose patient’s Personal Identifying Information (PII) and then how subsequent publication of the research findings discloses these same patient’s Protected Heath Information (PHI). We describe how these disclosures can occur and strategies to maintain patient privacy while studying neighborhood effects on patient outcomes.

Examining moderating role of personal identifying information in travel related decisions

Purpose The purpose of this study is to empirically verify the role of determinants of information quality in shaping attitudes and intention of respondents from major metro cities of India towards electronic word of mouth (e-WOM) using personal identifying information (PII) as a moderator. Design/methodology/approach For the purpose of measuring the role of information quality in predicting attitude towards e-WOM (moderated by PII), the study proposes and validates the research framework by collecting responses from 375 respondents with diverse demographics, belonging to select metro cities of India. Findings All the constructs of information quality have a significantly positive effect on attitude of travellers towards e-WOM. Attitude further impacts the behavioural intention to book via an online travel agency/agent (OTA). PII successfully moderated all the hypothesized relationships with attitude except review sidedness. Research implications The study offers a rationale to fill the gap between information quality and attitude as well as exploring new relationships using PII as a moderating variable. It further opens new avenues in researching the behavioural intention of travellers from metro cities of India with the disruptions created by Web 2.0. Practical implications OTAs in this competitive time must try to harmonize their systems to create content that is timely updated, unique, convincing and useful to build long-term relationships and generate continued revenues. Originality/value In the context of OTAs in India, this study has successfully identified the most relevant constructs of information quality and examined their effectiveness in creating a positive attitude towards e-WOM. The use of contemporary construct “PII” as a moderator will help marketers develop effective strategies for reducing anonymity in reviews and capturing the intention of experience-oriented travellers from the metro cities of India.

Consumer Privacy and Security Protection on Church Web Sites: Reasons for Concern

The authors examine online privacy and security issues in a study of 102 church Web sites throughout the nation and find that though church Web sites collect personal identifying information comparable to that collected by commercial Web sites, few offer information practice statements or privacy policies. Furthermore, unlike their commercial counterparts, church Web sites often post personal identifying information of their members and site visitors that enhances potential threats to both consumer privacy and security. Survey responses from 21 church Web site administrators provide further insight into this information disclosure gap and potential means of addressing it.