treated with respect as autonomous agents and affirms that those persons with diminished
autonomy are entitled to special protection. In practice, this principle is reflected in the process
of informed consent, in which the risks and benefits of the research are disclosed to the subject.
The second principle, beneficence, involves maximizing possible benefits and good for the
subject, while minimizing the amount of possible harm and risks resulting from the research.
Since the fruits of knowledge can come at a cost to those participating in research, the last
principle, justice, seeks a fair distribution of the burdens and benefits associated with research, so
that certain individuals or groups do not bear disproportionate risks while others reap the benefits.
This report is organized around these central principles.
BENEFITS AND RISKS
One of the fundamental principles of research ethics, beneficence, obligates researchers to maximize
possible benefits from the research and minimize harms and risks to their subjects. Benefits can be
defined as gain to society or science through contribution to the knowledge base, gain to the
individual through improved well being, or empowerment of the individual by giving him or her a
voice. Harms may include death and injury, psychological abuse, loss of privacy and public
exposure and may not only affect individuals, but specific population subgroups as well. Over the
years, guidelines and requirements such as informed consent and the protection of privacy and
confidentiality have been developed and modified to reinforce this ethical principle in the physical
world. As the Internet continues to offer researchers both a tool and a medium for research, there is
a need to reexamine how the principle of beneficence and current guidelines and requirements
translate into the virtual domain, and whether they provide an adequate foundation for protecting
human subjects. Whether the benefits and risks in online research are less or more than what occurs
in the physical world remains to be determined as research enters this new technological frontier.
We raise the issues below simply to indicate the potential for risk in Internet studies that warrants
assessment as this research proceeds.
No research involving human subjects should occur without some expectation of benefit, whether
it be the advancement of science and new understanding, or a direct benefit to the participating
subjects. Researchers’ claims about the benefits of their research will rest in large part on their
ability to collect useful data. But conducting research on the Internet raises questions about data
sampling techniques and the validity and reliability of the data collected. For example, the
Internet appeals to researchers because of its access to a potentially wide geographical and
diverse population. However, this may also be one of the pitfalls in such research, since it is