This free course, Networked practitioner: open or closed practice?, starts a debate to support the decision-making process around openness and the different preferences we each have.

In this transcript from Thinking Allowed, Laurie Taylor and guests discuss the role of the teenage bedroom across history - with a little help from The Beach Boys. 

Hackers have exposed the details of millions of users of a site designed to help married people cheat. Nobody comes out of the story looking particularly good - but who is more sinned against than sinning?

How realistic is it to maintain high ethical standards in the marketplace? Can a company market successfully - and honestly?

In modern Western cultures, the notion of privacy is central to our way of thinking. However, the potential that present-day communications and computing systems hold for surveillance is enormous. This OU Business School course extract considers how both society at large and you as an individual are affected.

Did you know that by surfing the internet you can lose your privacy, your money and even your identity? Computer viruses and Trojans often arise during the investigation of computer-based crime, such as the downloading of child pornography. But what if you are innocent? Often Trojans are cited as the cause in what’s become known in legal circles as "The Trojan Defence". Ian Kennedy whose OU research forms the basis for this programme uncovers some of the artefacts examined and techniques to support or refute claims of innocence. Somehow losing your privacy doesn't seem so bad at all.

Facebook's policy of insisting on real names is causing problems for people who value their privacy. For Ellery Roberts Biddle, the social network is overstepping its boundaries by demanding proof of identity without having proper policies in place to protect its users.

Our secrets, and how we choose to share them, form a type of currency, which can make loss of privacy an attack on how we feel about ourselves.

With privacy and libel cases on the increase, and the recent surge in ‘no win no fee’ law suits, is it now too easy to sue for defamation? And are our privacy laws now so restrictive that we risk extinguishing debate? Gary Slapper, Professor of Law at The Open University, and Frances Gibb, Legal Editor of The Times, discuss the need to balance individual privacy with free speech, and the ability of those in the media to express an opinion without the threat of legal action.