What’s complicated about this scenario is that, in light of his successful Kickstarter effort, Braff’s project has been further buoyed by a traditional film financer (Worldview Entertainment). In effect, the main thing Braff achieved was significantly raising the profile of his prospective film by asking his fans to prove they would support it in advance. He received the rough equivalent of $2 million worth of free advertising (and was paradoxically granted more than $2 million while doing so). That makes me skeptical of his motives — and if this sketchy transaction was indeed his intent, he drifts back into unethical territory. But this is merely my own speculation. I can’t read his mind. As it stands, I can’t classify Zach Braff as anything worse than opportunistic.

SPOUSAL SURVEILLANCE

When my wife misplaced her phone, she gave me the necessary password information to allow me to locate it from my own phone, using a phone-tracking app. Since then, I have occasionally used the tracking app in casual, day-to-day life: to determine if she has arrived at a destination safely, for example, or to see how close she is when she’s picking me up for something. Am I ethically obligated to tell my wife when I do this? Is it, in fact, unethical to do this at all? I have no interest in keeping tabs on her whereabouts and no reason to distrust her in any way. NAME WITHHELD

If everything you describe here is 100 percent accurate, the way you’re using this phone app is not (technically) unethical. No one is being harmed, and your motives are good. You’re not the government. But not informing your wife that you do this is absolutely wrong. You can’t stalk your spouse’s movements without her consent. As things stand now, what you’re doing is not radically different from secretly fitting her with a tracking collar. You have to tell her that you do this, and if she feels it’s an infringement on her personal privacy in any context, you need to stop (or at least give her an opportunity to change her password). This is a situation in which the act itself is O.K., but hiding the act is not.

If you really want to stick to the letter of the law, a prosecutor could argue that you’re in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which prohibits computer use that “exceeds authorized access.” Obviously, that’s not a risk in this situation. Your wife is not going to press charges against you. She might, however, wonder why her husband is innocuously spying on her, ostensibly for no pressing reason. Unless you distrust her more than you claim, what is the possible upside to not telling her you do this? If you’re honestly not doing anything untoward, why would it matter if she knows?