Hi all,
quite interesting for FIM4L and thus FYI:
On Mai, 20 the German Research Foundationy (Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft, DFG, one of the most influencial research funding bodies in Germany) published a paper on "Data tracking in research: aggregation and use or sale of usage data by academic publishers" (https://www.dfg.de/download/pdf/foerderung/programme/lis/datentracking_papie...) with following contents:
1. Description of the current situation
2. The transformation of the major publishers and their relationshipwith the academic community
2.1 Consequences of the transformation of publishers into data analytics businesses
3. Types of Data mining
3.1 Third Party Data through Microtargeting
3.2 Bidstream Data and port scanning
3.3 Publisher spyware
4. Conclusion
Some sentences from the conclusion:
"Potentially, research tracking of this kind can fundamentally contradict academic freedom and informational self-determination. It can endanger scientists and hinder the freedom of competition in the field of information provision. For this reason, scholars and academic institutions must become aware of the problem and clarify the legal, technical and ethical framework conditions of their information supply –not least so as to avoid involuntarily violating applicable law, but also to ensure that academics are appropriately informed and protected."
I think that in the light of such developments, our work gets even more important.
Cheers,
Peter