Information about privacy on the Internet: Cookies, Referrer Fields, adware,
etc.
Privacy is a big topic, and different people have very different feelings
about it. And people are not necessarily consistent. For instance, Google's
Eric Schmidt famously saidthat anyone who wants privacy is probably up to no
good. Yet an article about Mr. Schmidt's divorce quotes "a source" saying
that he and his wife are both very private.
One way to help clarify privacy issues might be to divide people into 3
groups:
Group 1: People who don't care about privacy and don't see what the fuss
is about.
.. Group 2: People who are concerned about privacy, but don't want to put a
lot of effort into protecting theirs.
.. Group 3: People who worry about privacy and do what they can to protect
theirs.
If you use free webmail (GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo) or free "social
networking" services (Facebook, Google+, MySpace) then you are probably in
Group 1 or Group 2. You don't worry about privacy, or at least don't care
enough to do anything about it. The information here will not be of interest
to you. If you are in Group 3... this webpage is for you. If you are in
Group 3 and you also use some of the services above, then... this webpage is
really for you.
It's probably safe to say that the vast majority of people are in Group
2. They are somewhat concerned about privacy, but they like convenience.
They like free services. If privacy means losing any of that then they'd
rather not think about it. The ostrich approach.
The fact that most people take an ostrich approach goes a long way to
explain the current landscape in terms of online privacy. Big online
companies are increasingly making big money by exploiting private
information in a big way. Protecting online privacy, or even gaining a basic
understanding of the issues, is becoming increasingly complex. And most
people are ostriches. The result is a kind of "Don't ask, don't tell"
scenario. People avoid looking under the surface of ad-supported online
services and those services, in turn, are careful to keep the surface
looking unsuspicious.
In February, 2012 President Barak Obama's people released a
fancy-looking Privacy Bill of Rights, made to look like an official
government document, but saying nothing substantial. Concurrently, major
browser makers said they will support a "Do Not Track" button for
browsers... Maybe... Well, actually, not really. Facebook's approach has
been described as "asking for forgiveness rather than permission". They
exploit their members, to cash in on targetted advertising, as much as they
feel they can get away with; then they backtrack when there's a backlash.
All of this generates vague sounds of progress, and that's enough for most
people. That's really all the ostriches are asking for.
*
More - much more - here: http://www.jsware.net/jsware/privacytips.php5
JS
Reply With Quote
