Dear AoIRists, Recognizing that it's getting a bit tight in terms of the March 1 deadline for proposal submissions - nonetheless, I would ask for suggestions and expresssions of interest for contributions to a panel proposal provisionally titled "Contemporary Internet research ethics: o.k. in the grey?" The idea is first of all to go forward from last year's panel, which highlighted several deeply challenging ethical problems in contemporary Internet research: death-casting (Yukari Seko), nakedness and contextual ethics (Katrin Tiidenberg), issues in online counseling (Camilla Granholm), and studying closed FB groups for parents grieving the deaths of their children (Ylva Hård af Segerstad, Dick Kasperowski). These contributions were then commented on by Mark Johns and Annette Markham, who deftly helped weave them in with comparable / larger themes and issues. The open discussion then took up these and additional issues - including the then fresh discussion on the AoIR list of the ethics of using (my pararphase) sensitive / personal data without informed consent or other usual protections, following their "leaking" into publicly accessible venues (sometimes called "grey data"). My hopes for the panel are to update findings and reflections on these specific cases and to extend both examples of such challenging cases, coupled with careful ethical analyses from diverse ethical and cultural traditions - including attention to how we might best wrestle with such ethically grey areas. "O.k. in the grey" is both a reminder of the questions of "grey data", but also goes back to an especially astute student comment in an applied ethics class (now many, many moons ago) as her summary of what we were learning and practicing: namely, how to come to somewhat more comfortable grips with multiple possible approaches and resolutions, along with the correlative intrinsic ambiguities and uncertainties, in our efforts to respond to ethical challenges that must be resolved one way or another. Further, part of the upshot of the discussion was the clear need to continue to explore such cases - both for their own sake and for the sake of an eventual 3.0 version of the AoIR ethics guidelines for Internet research. As many of you know, version 2.0 was published in 2012, led by Annette Markham and Elizabeth Buchanan, following two years' (if not more) work by the AoIR ethics committee. As some of you may not know, the ethics committee has been dissolved. There were many sound and good reasons for this: but especially in the absence of a given group of persons formally assigned responsibilities for such discussions, I also hope that the proposed panel will help keep alive our shared reflections and dialogues on some of the most pressing matters of Internet research ethics. Please send me off-list any suggestions, etc. I will be especially grateful for brief descriptions of a case that you and/or a group of researchers would be interested in and able to present as part of such a panel for general reflection and discussion. Ditto for nominations, including self-nominations, for panel commentators. Many thanks in advance and much looking forward, - charles ess Professor in Media Studies Department of Media and Communication University of Oslo <http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/people/aca/charlees/index.html> <http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/people/aca/charlees/index.html> Director, Centre for Research in Media Innovations (CeRMI) Editor, The Journal of Media Innovations <https://www.journals.uio.no/index.php/TJMI/> <https://www.journals.uio.no/index.php/TJMI/> Postboks 1093 Blindern 0317 Oslo, Norway c.m.ess@media.uio.no