Internet-Based Online Privacy

Introduction

Online privacy, or internet privacy, is a concern for everyone who signs up for the internet, and its history has gone on since the origin of the internet. Privacy is one of the essential parts of everyone’s life. No matter how clear someone tries to be, there are a lot of things that are required to be hidden from others. Pictures, passwords, databases, bank accounts, and property details must be kept private and not shown to other people. The Hackers cyber-crime to breach the security firewalls so that they can collect the data that is hidden because of privacy concerns. There are outnumbered agencies and software developers who are working to improve online privacy and minimize firewall breaches on the internet. There are many good sides as well as bad sides of the online privacy. Also, a large number of analysts and business development software and strategy developers have recommended the best ways to improve online privacy. The main aim of the paper is to discuss internet-based online privacy in general.

Discussion

According to some analysts, cybersecurity researchers, and government officials, there are some points highlighted that could explain why internet security and online privacy are the most important topics for the common public as well as on the official levels. Sometimes, there are some business strategies under discussion, and if privacy is not considered, they will lose importance. The NASA experts explain that if there were no intranet in their sector, then they would be the most vulnerable agency with respect to data snooping. People are highly concerned about the new researchers, and the online privacy of NASA matters a lot for keeping things hidden for a specific passage of time. There are some actions from LinkedIn and Facebook that the accounts being misused and mistreated are closed until the original user does not try to reach them and requests the opening of the account. These actions help to win the confidence of the users.

People of some specific groups share some particular pictures on those groups only, and privacy matters to them while sharing them over there. When thinking about social networking, I noticed that social forums have kept privacy concerns on top of anything else. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are the most active social networking web portals, and they are highly used because of their efficient security and privacy maintenance standards. Some useful and well-firmed social networking portals died in a night because of the lack of data privacy, and people rapidly switched to other, more appropriate social networks. Also, people were highly focused on how the company maintains its data privacy on dating sites. Also, there is a discussion about data privacy among users as online websites are considering the changes in data privacy with the passage of time.

The law associates have also discussed data privacy in detail. It is explained that online privacy is precious and matters a lot to everyone who shares even just his phone number on the internet. Internet websites contain millions of terabytes of data of their customers, viewers, sellers, and buyers, and they sell this data to multinational branding corporations for advertisement, analysis, and research purposes, and the purpose is only to earn money. Personal data is highly significant and private to an individual, but any of the social networks does not concern it. The news agencies are highly concerned about the news from some businesses, their ownership, a celebrity, their life, their way of spending time, and many other things. They all could be retrieved from the internet. Retrieving anyone’s data from online forums is easy. A single line of chat being exposed to the public could change the way of thinking of millions of fans all around the world about a celebrity or a reputed brand like Aamir Khan and Coca-Cola.

There are many good sides as well as bad sides of online privacy. The discussion should be started with the bad side. The breaking of an individual’s online privacy could be harmful, and every American faces this all the time. The advertising agencies buy the phone numbers from the telecommunication companies, which causes an outnumbered advertising calls and messages, interrupting the busy schedules of Americans. The First Amendment in the United States is in favor of all these things, but advertising agencies use our data and immortalize privacy, which needs to be kept private rather than provided to the people who use our data for personal benefit. The good side is that online privacy helps us move in freedom rather than being kept under observation. It should be noticed that privacy helps us to be self-expressive, creative, explain our mind thoughts and to write down the plans. There are some studies that demonstrate that internet privacy is highly significant and that keeping the data privacy of an individual would help him to act innovatively rather than concentrate on his moves for privacy concerns.

A case study is about online privacy concerns. In this case study, the highlighted analysis was about the fear-based theorizing for the exploration of online privacy. Self-control is associated with decreased internet scam victimization, as well as some other factors that affect online privacy. The study, in the end, explained that it creates fear among people about internet privacy breaches, and people don’t trust the internet at all after finding that the data on the web could be accessed by anyone anywhere in the world.

Another study was conducted by computer science and technology experts about internet privacy concerns, and they aimed to find the behavior of the students regarding the online privacy paradox. The study was an experiment on the students of Israeli academia, and the investigation was conducted through the quantitative method. It was a questionnaire and a closed-ended questionnaire in which the students were asked different questions. The study was conducted using those questions, which was a regression analysis, and it showed that computer science and information science students have deficient levels of behavior against the privacy paradox. The accounting and business management students have relatively higher.

All the studies currently being completed about online privacy concerns are judging whether the one associated with the internet is concerned about his privacy or not. The answer is yes. Even the one who has no hidden information still needs to know the protection and privacy levels of his data. Nobody leaves his data open and unprotected on the internet. There are many institutes that officially discourage online privacy breaches, and many countries’ governments are working on securing their citizens’ privacy online and offline.

Some analysts are discussing this fact and are recommending online privacy. More than a decade has passed, and privacy issues have not been resolved. A different analysis is under progress, which is concerned with online privacy, and it is highlighted that they will finalize the new set of policies, which will help gain the trust of the common public in many ways. One of the main aspects that are discussed is that corporations like Google and Microsoft were using customer data for advertising purposes, but now the process will be done the same but in a very different way. Artificial intelligence is enhanced, and the direction of searching for relevance is wholly changed. Now, the data is neither accessed nor moved from your access to anywhere due to privacy; the related advertisements, bonding, and linkages are being made so that the customer would be satisfied, and online confidentiality would also be maintained.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, it can be concluded that online privacy is one of the leading aspects of an internet user. It would be unhealthy if his data would be misused and mistreated. The advertisement agencies are trying hard to find ways to reach into the world’s known corporation’s databases, but because of the privacy, they are not allowed to do so. The good and bad sides of privacy are also discussed. Some of the most general social issues are raised because of the lack of online privacy, or if online privacy is damaged, then it is highly risky. Cyberbullying is one of the primary results of weak or breached cyber privacy. Due to weak online privacy, young people use their classmates’ and friends’ data, pictures, phone numbers, and addresses in the wrong way, which leads to bullying and severe effects. Many adolescents tried suicide because of the social abuse of their private data exposed to their friends.

Works Cited

Chen, Hongliang, Christopher E. Beaudoin, and Traci Hong. “Securing online privacy: An empirical test on Internet scam victimization, online privacy concerns, and privacy protection behaviors.” Computers in Human Behavior 70 (2017): 291-302.

Clemons, Eric K., and Jordyn Banattar. “Regulating Online Privacy: Some Policy Guidelines, Including Guidelines for International Harmonization.” Proceedings of the 51st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. 2018.

Weinberger, Maor, Maayan Zhitomirsky-Geffet, and Dan Bouhnik. “Predictors of online privacy paradox behavior among students.” iConference 2017 Proceedings (2017).