Privacy and the Internet

Pamela Wilson
BLOG 5
LS 589-W1

Because I am a person who values my privacy very highly, I decided to look this week at the issue of personal privacy while using the new technologies that are available through the Internet. I don’t use the Internet too often for personal use. My use of it is generally work or school related. Since taking this class on new technology I have used many applications which are great, but leave me wondering how private my actions are.

I found a very good article on privacy and the internet on The Digital Author. One disturbing thing that I found out is that as of 2001, there was “no one comprehensive federal legislation for Internet privacy” (Dobbs, 2001, p. 5). Most of the legislation that we have has developed over the years on a case by case basis. It only covers the disclosure of information and not the collection or use of information obtained on the Internet (Dobbs, 2001, p.5). Dobbs (2001) refers to a 1998 Harris Poll on online insecurity which found that “worries about protecting personal information on the Net ranked as the top reason people are staying off the Web” (Dobbs, 2001, p.2). This concern is deals with the security of information sent over the Internet, but also with concerns about what others will do with the information that they collect.

The fact is that in the United States, we don’t have privacy on the Internet. Dobbs’ article was last updated in July of 2001 so it doesn’t deal with the issues which were created after the 2001 September 11th terrorist attack on the United States when the Homeland Security Department was created. Dobbs (2001) reports that in 1998 the European Union had stronger privacy acts to protect its citizens on the Internet than we have in the United States. In 1999, Canada also passed a bill for the protection of Canadian’s privacy while on the Internet. In the United States the protection of privacy is formulated on the premise that industry will self regulate and protect consumer’s privacy. One analyst stated that “Most privacy policies are a joke. …The vast majority of policies are made up of vague terminology and legalese that serve to protect companies more than individuals” (Dobbs, 2001, pg 10).

According to information published by the Australian Government at http://www.privacy.gov.au/topics/technologies/privacy one privacy threat is composed of cookies. A cookie is a bit of information sent to your computer browser when you go to a website. This information is saved to your hard disk and is retrieved by the web site every time you visit it. The problem arises when you provide information about yourself to the web site to purchase something or subscribe to a free service. The cookie can collect that information and then be used to profile you. There are software products that you can get to protect your computer from cookies. Among these sites are Cookie Crusher, Cookie Pal and Cookie Cruncher.

A way to protect credit card information if you buy over the Internet is to use Secure Socket Layer which is built into major browsers. SSL provides security while making the transaction, but if the company you are dealing with doesn’t have secure storage for credit card numbers, hackers can steal lists of credit card numbers from the site. To encrypt your email and make it readable to only those that you send it to, you can use a free program entitled PGP or Pretty Good Privacy.

So there are ways for people to protect themselves while on the Internet, but I am left wondering how much information about me is online. One day one of my students used Google to find my home address which was correct and my age which was incorrect. A fellow teacher told me that she found our salaries listed on a website that advocates that public school teachers are being paid too much. While it is wonderful what all we can do with technology we still must be cognizant that we don’t have privacy on the Internet.

References

Dobbs, L. E., Esq. (2001, July). Privacy on the Internet. The Digital Author. Retrieved October 4, 2009 from http://www.geocites.com/ldjandl/thesis/articles_dobbs_privacyontheinternet.html

Austrailian Government (n.d.). Protecting your privacy on the Internet. Retrieved October 4, 2009 from http://www.privacy.gov.au/topics/technologies/privacy