California Right to Know Act: Time Newspaper has learnt that it's not surprising that Internet companies have electronic dossiers that contain personal information for individuals who subscribe to the websites. Generally, these companies have obtained the information from people based on individual's visit to the website, sent and received emails, tagged photos, and searches people carry out. However, the extent of personal information known by these Internet companies has remained largely unknown as well who they provide and/or sell this information to. However, Internet companies continue to gather lots of personal information from different people who focus on carrying out online activities on a daily basis. Currently, it's estimated that these firms gather personal information from nearly 500 million users but are hesitant to provide this information to the other firms or individuals. As their unwillingness to share has attracted significant congressional inquiry, things could finally change in California following the introduction of a bill that may force companies to disclose the kind of personal information they have gathered and how this information is being used. Summary of California's Right to Know Act: California's Right to Know Act has been a long-overdue bill in the State's legislature that seeks to force Internet companies like Facebook and Google to disclose the collected personal information and the use of that information (Cohen, 2013). The introduction
In her article George Orwell…Meet Mark Zuckerberg, Lori Andrews discusses the privacy issue on internet. The issue involving Data aggregators that hack into our internet and use our personal information to sell to larger cooperation’s so they can advertise items to us. In this Article Andrews argues against the idea of cooperation’s going through someone personal internet history on what they have researched on and to use that information as a database for describing that person, creating another life on the internet. Andrews claims that if you were to get a loan, a job, a house or a credit card it would now work on web lining basically what you have put on your digital self, rather than your credit history it would depend on things like
He then uses ethos by discussing his role as “an operator of a small government-transparency Web site,” who does good for his site’s visitors when there is enough money to do so. Harper is a founding member of the Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee for the Department of Homeland Security and an expert in the legal complications surrounding new technologies. He offers us this role to persuade readers to perceive him as a trustworthy person. Harper begins his essay by stating that if you surf the Web, you are part of the information economy. His essay, which was published in the Wall Street Journal, argues that the business models and opportunities used to customize advertising justifies the use of data mining. Because of advertising and the use of cookies, which are files used to track users in order to customize their experiences, companies such as Google are able to spend millions of dollars on free
"We Need Privacy Laws for the Digital Era | The Nation." The Nation, 8 Jan. 2014. Web. 21 Oct. 2016.
Our Bill of Rights, consider privacy as a legal element of human rights. Privacy restrains our government and the private sector to both act in ways that don’t threaten individuals’ privacy. For this basic reason, the Privacy Act was enacted in 1974 by The Department of Justice. The Privacy Act of 1974 defines by governing how information is collected, maintained, used, and disseminated about individuals in systems of records by federal agencies. The Privacy Act requires that agencies give the public notice of their systems of records by publication in the Federal Register. The Privacy Act
Federal government regulate only certain areas, leaving it to the Internet user to avoid unwanted data collection or use and the private companies to apply protective privacy policies that are followed. It is very difficult to determine where to draw the line to prevent unwanted use and storage of consumer information and how best to protect a person’s online privacy while leaving room for freedom of speech and e-commerce for Web site owners and online advertisers.
The unknown author(s) of the article “Your Browser Is Selling You Out,” states how website advertisements, computer programs, and websites in general are collecting and storing private information. Andrea Rock, the author of “How Private Is Your Private Life?,” shows how her doing everyday activities puts her privacy at risk. Also both articles explain what cookies are and how they are used for ad networks such as DoubleClick. Andrea Rock’s article is put in sequence format to show what she does during the day that puts her privacy at risk, such as using a supermarket discount card, registering a car, or using an E-ZPass (Rock 683-685). In contrast, the article “Your Browser Is Selling You Out” goes through three different ways in depth on how privacy is being collected and
The online world has recently changed from being able to make a phone call in privacy to having someone being able to hear your every word, without you even knowing. Our value of privacy has changed over the years as we have somewhat taken for granted the privacy we originally had. Some could even say that we have arrived back in the future in ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’, with the lack of privacy that we currently possess.
At this instant, if one remains connected to the internet via smartphone, laptop, smart watch, or any other connected device, that being acts as a source of information for companies to use. People wonder how much spying the government and companies truly conduct in, and along came Edward Snowden in two-thousand-thirteen to expose how much is really tracked. Notably, Tom Geller, author of “In Privacy Law, It’s the U.S. vs. the World”, states, “His 2013 exposé of spying practices revealed the U.S. was secretly collecting protected European data, often via U.S. companies like Facebook” (Gellar 21). The whistleblowing act done by Edward Snowden has internet privacy becoming more of a political issue which is beneficial to the individuals who browse
Recently the topic of privacy has been brought up in the news since President Trump signed a bill to repeal internet privacy, giving internet provider companies the right to sell your internet history (Fung, 2017). Some say this is isn’t right, and that the government has no right to delve into our business. Other people think that as long as you aren’t look at anything bad, you should have nothing to worry about. Privacy isn’t an entirely necessary thing to have, but it is a nice thing to have. And in today’s world, where technology is taking over almost every aspect of our lives, soon enough the government might be able to control us.
Each time we use the internet from these devices, our information is recorded. “Acxiom alone has accumulated an average of 1,500 pieces of data on each person on its database – which includes 96 percent of Americans – along with data about everything from their credit scores to where they’ve bought medication from incontinence” (Pariser, 3). Everything that someone does on the internet is stored in a database. This is the information that is used to filter what you see online. Online information is recorded on each person starting before birth, which is called a digital dossier. According to Palfrey and Grasser, a digital dossier is a superset that includes all personal information associated with a persons’ name (39). “In the course of a day in the life of a college student, many of the basic social interactions between young people are recorded” (Palfrey Grasser, 49). The social media pages you visit, the videos and posts you upload are recorded in your digital dossier which lies in the hands of many people like Acxiom and Google, who then form an idea of who you are. “His digital dossier will be held in thousands of hands…much less to control what others can come to know about him.” (Palfrey and Grasser 50). Some of these hands include companies like Google, Netflix, Amazon, and Acxiom who use this information to filter
Over the past decade the world has gotten much smaller due to the electronic communication the Internet has fostered. While this promotes business and international relations, problems arise regarding the protection of individuals’ personal information. Many countries around the world have developed privacy policies and laws protect an individual's information in the realm of electronic communication. Universal enforcement gets complicated because the Internet is not restricted to one country; it’s worldwide. As a result, concerns arise regarding the compatibility of various countries' privacy policies. This paper will discuss the current legislation in place for various major
Thanks to the popularization of the internet, we can now keep ourselves connected to the cloud every minute. While the internet has brought us immense convenience and enjoyment, we have been compromising our privacy using it. Every day, we exchange megabytes or even gigabytes of data via the internet, and inevitably share our personal information with someone out there. Throughout the past decades, we have begun to realize that the internet is not secure—our information could be easily acquired by someone we don’t even know. Admittedly, today, our activities online can be easily surveilled. The discussion over privacy and surveillance has been heated in the recent several years, and many have blamed surveillance for “damaging democracy” and “invading human rights.” However, we should realize that we are looking at the issue too subjectively. We are far too over paranoid about our privacy. We need to give online data collection credit for keeping our society
The relationship between government and citizens is often called into question when it comes to surveillance and the privacy of the people against the value of the information gained. This situation is echoed within the makeup of our online society, as we are given small benefits and social reasons to allow access to our information, while the government takes in as much data as they can to monitor people and use it as protection against possible outside threats, which results in a difficult balance. Through this, the government, commonly referred to as “Big Brother,” watches the habits of its citizens and while many think that the Internet is a battleground for privacy, the government holds much more weight because of their access to information,
The concern about privacy on the Internet is increasingly becoming an issue of international dispute. ?Citizens are becoming concerned that the most intimate details of their daily lives are being monitored, searched and recorded.? (www.britannica.com) 81% of Net users are concerned about threats to their privacy while online. The greatest threat to privacy comes from the construction of e-commerce alone, and not from state agents. E-commerce is structured on the copy and trade of intimate personal information and therefore, a threat to privacy on the Internet.
As the increase of data collection and media reports of its affect (Pitta, Franzak and Laric, 2003; Ha, 2004), privacy concern increases on customers (Pitta, Franzak and Laric, 2003; Ha, 2004; Spake, Finney and Joseph, 2011; Bernard, 2011). This is the