Internet And Privacy Essay

Created for communication, the internet, both the world wide web and the deep web, is the greatest way to transmit information between multiple platforms. The exponential growth of the internet only increased its use in the world, with a myriad of digital services, like the media, articles, forums, and entertainment and social platforms, especially twitter, youtube, facebook, and multiplayer gaming, using it as a vehicle for communication and spreading information, and possibly also influence. The uses of the Internet is good to know, sure, but what does it have to do with the concept of privacy? Today, the involvement of the internet with privacy gets quite convoluted, and countless issues, successes, controversies, and terrors have occurred

The Internet, in just twenty years, grew from having 16 million users to 3.3 billion globally, about 46% of the current population, and is still growing today, according to the Internet World Stats. With the availability of smartphones, the Internet can now be carried in users’ pockets, and more information is available to create, share, and spread. Tons of sensitive data is sent through the internet everyday, such as usernames and passwords, personal information, bank and credit card information, and details regarding identity. Sensitive data are regularly sent through and stored on secure and protected servers. As such, there is the saying, “nothing is impenetrable”, and some people figured that with such an amount of data constantly flowing in and out, it would be a good idea to try and draw information from the world’s largest source. In the book Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life, the author Helen Nissenbaum writes, “INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IS CONSIDERED A MAJOR THREAT TO privacy because it enables pervasive surveillance, massive databases, and lightning-speed distribution of information across the globe” (1). For example, software called malware, or malicious software, such as viruses, trojans, web bugs, adware, and

What is the purpose? Easily accessible information is like a light in a dark place. In the past, communication was slow and cumbersome, and gathering data on any real world events or information took real hard work and effort. People were in the dark. But with the advent of an instant global communication, any intelligence can be acquired with a few button clicks. This means that businesses can take great advantage of this convenience. Marketing data and demographics can be easily acquired. Polls and surveys are easily spread and the results arrive in real time. Different online services can be easily monitored to observe what people are more attracted to, which can be used to strengthen marketing tactics. In fact, according to PNAS, major US retail networks “used customer shopping records to predict pregnancies of its female customers and send them well-timed and well-targeted offers”. This shows a general example of information-gathering for non-malicious purposes. Surely, though, people took, even stole, information for more devious intents? In 2011, the Playstation Network experienced a cyber attack and was down for a month. As Sony had Playstation down, they warned that “hackers had stolen names, addresses and possibly credit card details from the 77 million user accounts of its video game online network” (Reuters). Different than enigmatic and