He emphasizes the avoidance of harm to people who are observed, the validity of the methods used, maintaining trust with the broad group of people subject to surveillance, and permission when crossing personal borders. They start by examining the nature of the year 2000 problem, its potential to do harm, the progress that organizations have made to date on this issue, and factors that have worked to inhibit or facilitate organizational responses to this problem. Their ethical analysis reveals that both top management and IS professionals have responsibilities to act on this issue. They urge managers and IS professionals to make the completion of their year 2000 problem efforts a top priority, because it is their responsibility and it serves as an investment for the future. He reviews accounts of the origins and growth of the global Internet with an interest in their implications for the future.
Many accounts take overly restricted views of technical development.
For instance, the Internet is often seen as simply the outgrowth of US Defense Department developments and popular enthusiasm. Recent interdisciplinary studies of technology present a more complex picture of how innovations are developed. They highlight technical alternatives, contributions of diverse groups, variety in meanings of technologies, and overall the surprising character of technology development. Guice indicates how the Internet has multiple origins and that there have been numerous particular reasons for its spread. He also notes how some current discussions of the entry of Internet technologies into consumers' homes and the convergence among computing, media and telecommunications enterprises represent examples of more complex accounts of technology development.