• ethics
• autonomy

Bioethical principlism places an emphasis on autonomy. In a certain analogous way, modern promotional public health emphasises the role of self care as a key element to achieve healthy states. One of the many presumed available sources of guidance in health is information provided on the internet. Both this information’s quality and the tools to measure it are considered highly inconsistent. This topic has become a matter of bioethical concern, because of the possibilities for harm (maleficence) to potential users. On the other hand, there are large contingents worldwide consisting solely of non-consumers unable to dedicate themselves to self care practices. This brief commentary considers some issues related to a global perspective towards what may be considered pertinent to a public health ethics.

The domains of health ethics have been occupied by new issues. Emerging circumstances clearly call for the field’s revalidation. One example is the discussion of a so called “global” bioethics, not focused exclusively on problems in the economically strong nations.¹ Other emerging ethical issues involve “e-health”, or the availability of health related content through electronic information networks. New specialties such as telemedicine and cybermedicine are thus appearing in the area of medical informatics. There are already specialised journals on e-health and literature on corresponding ethical issues.

Under such circumstances it becomes untenable to insist on the traditional place of the “patient”, who requires the proximity of his/her …