Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Invasion of Privacy


Who are you? What are you doing? How much money do you make? Where do you live? Are these things you are comfortable telling a stranger? I'm not. The increase in tracking or should I say, stalking on the internet makes me uneasy. People should have a right to not be followed. It seems like they keep increasing the amount of information they gather. First it was just the websites you visit. Now they know your age, where you live, and what your income is. Where will it end? I understand that free internet sites like dictionary.com and youtube need to make money from advertising, but I don't want them to make money by selling my information or putting tracking cookies on my computer. I was especially surprised to learn that dictionary.com, a website that I use often, installs 159 tracking cookies.

While I was looking up some additional information on this topic I came across an article by ABC news. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GadgetGuide/Story?id=4872498&page=1
Security cameras are used on city streets in London and facial recognition software is used in stores and airports. It just seems like it's becoming too much. The next thing you know you'll be expected to hand over a dna sample when you're stopped for a traffic violation.
I don't use the internet for anything I am ashamed of, but I like my privacy and I am not a fan of anything that threatens it.

2 comments:

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  2. Dictionary.com really? I use that site on an almost daily basis and they have THAT many tracking cookies in their system. That's incredible. Thanks for the information. I should delete it from my Favorites section, but all the websites probably partake in this sort of action anyways.

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