Lola Waczkow, Year 11, Anderson House Introduction Over the centuries technology has evolved. Innovation dates back 2 million years ago, from the first inventions of tools made from stone, ranging to the Ancient Greeks of the invention of mathematics, along with the Romans’ underfloor heating systems, to the first steam train being invented and, to the first antibiotic, penicillin. Technology can be seen in many different forms and it is how we as humans have adapted to our surroundings and the reason for which we have revolutionized. Technology has developed over time as we have developed and it has changed the way we think. Innovation has been the major reason for the advancement of humanity, especially in the medical and mechanical industry and it has always been beneficial for society. Technology has always been seen as something good for humanity. However, over the past couple of years technology has developed rapidly to lead to a new digital revolution known as the information age. The information age has led to mechanisation, and therefore the increase of demand in the tertiary and quaternary industry, stated in the Clark-Fisher model, due to the lack of use of human labour in these industries from the advancement of machinery. But most importantly, the information age has led to the construction of technological devices, online companies and social media.
These platforms have introduced new concepts; ones that the human race has never dealt with or seen before. Therefore it is the laws duties to make sure these concepts are being regulated strictly and ethically enough. Ethical Usage of Companies Online, e-commerce companies have been a major problem for the law to keep pace with due to its rapid and ever-changing new concepts. Multi-million dollar companies expand rapidly and as they do so, laws need to be created or changed in order to compensate for this growth. As a result, these online and ecommerce companies can be hard to regulate. The upcoming constant new changes that occur so often, make laws often irrelevant and legislation needs to be made rapidly to respond to and contain changes. A source from the BBC states that Amazon, an e-commerce giant, “only paid £293 million in tax in the UK while its sales surged 26% to £13.73 billion”. This, therefore, represents how little these online companies, from the large profits being made, give back to the government compared to what they extract and make a profit off of in society. This is largely due to the weak legislation that allows multimillion dollar companies to pay 0% of federal tax. In addition to this, online companies that are founded online are furthermore hard to regulate as to who and
25 | Are Our Laws Keeping Pace With The Digital Age
where they are held accountable for, for example, which country to whom they owe tax. So how do you regulate these companies? Internet companies should have clear transparency about who their customers are; for example, what are the controls to make sure you do not invest in illegal or terrorist financing. Furthermore, online companies should invest in society more to make the balance fairer between what these companies extract and give back to society, especially in tax rates in which the law should promote. A key issue here is also in data privacy and data security. The selling of data between companies, specifically customer data, is still permitted. However, it is only allowed if the customers have been informed but customers usually do not realise they are agreeing to such terms as the consent forms are incredibly long and most only read the terms and conditions briefly, if at all, so this subject is very easily missed. Therefore, customers are providing consent to the selling of their data without them being aware. Companies store and keep personal user data to personalize and tailor experiences in order to target specific individuals to keep them attentive and in turn increase the addiction and time consumed on these platforms regardless if this addiction is healthy or not for the user. The company in turn makes
