Introduction
Online privacy, or internet privacy, is a concern for everyone who uses the internet, and its history goes back to the origin of the internet. Privacy is one of the essential parts of everyone’s life. No matter how open someone tries to be, there are a lot of things that need to be hidden from others. Pictures, passwords, databases, bank accounts, and property details must be kept private and not shown to other people. Hackers commit cybercrime to breach security firewalls so that they can collect data that is hidden because of privacy concerns. There are countless agencies and software developers working to improve online privacy and minimize firewall breaches on the internet. There are many good sides as well as bad sides to 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 (Clemons and Banattar; Chen, Beaudoin, and Hong).
Discussion
According to some analysts, cybersecurity researchers, and government officials, there are some points that highlight why internet security and online privacy are important topics for the general public as well as at official levels. Sometimes, business strategies are under discussion, and if privacy is not considered, they will lose importance. NASA experts explain that if there were no intranet in their sector, then they would be highly vulnerable with respect to data snooping. People are highly concerned about new research, and the online privacy of NASA matters a lot for keeping things hidden for a specific period of time. LinkedIn and Facebook take actions in which accounts that are being misused or mistreated are closed until the original user reaches out and requests the reopening of the account. These actions help to win the confidence of users (Clemons and Banattar).
People in some specific groups share particular pictures only within those groups, and privacy matters to them while sharing them there. When thinking about social networking, I noticed that social forums have kept privacy concerns at the top of their priorities. 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-established social networking portals died overnight because of a lack of data privacy, and people rapidly switched to other, more appropriate social networks. Also, people were highly focused on how companies maintained data privacy on dating sites. There is also a discussion about data privacy among users as online websites consider changes in data privacy over time (Weinberger, Zhitomirsky-Geffet, and Bouhnik; Clemons and Banattar).
Legal experts 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 a phone number on the internet. Internet websites contain millions of terabytes of data about their customers, viewers, sellers, and buyers, and they sell this data to multinational branding corporations for advertisement, analysis, and research purposes, with the purpose of earning money. Personal data is highly significant and private to an individual, but not every social network treats it as such. News agencies are highly concerned about news from businesses, their ownership, celebrities, their lives, their ways of spending time, and many other things. Such information can be retrieved from the internet. Retrieving anyone’s data from online forums is easy. A single line of chat exposed to the public could change the way millions of fans all around the world think about a celebrity or a reputed brand like Aamir Khan or Coca-Cola (Clemons and Banattar).
There are many good sides as well as bad sides to online privacy. The discussion should start with the bad side. Breaking an individual’s online privacy could be harmful, and every American faces this all the time. Advertising agencies buy phone numbers from telecommunication companies, which causes countless advertising calls and messages that interrupt 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 undermine privacy, which needs to be kept private rather than provided to people who use our data for personal benefit. The good side is that online privacy helps us move freely rather than being kept under observation. It should be noted that privacy helps us to be self-expressive and creative, explain our thoughts, and write down our plans. There are some studies that demonstrate that internet privacy is highly significant and that protecting an individual’s data privacy would help that person act innovatively rather than concentrate on every move because of privacy concerns (Clemons and Banattar).
A case study examined online privacy concerns. In this case study, the highlighted analysis concerned fear-based theorizing for the exploration of online privacy. Self-control is associated with decreased internet scam victimization, as well as with some other factors that affect online privacy. In the end, the study explained that privacy breaches create fear among people, and people don’t trust the internet at all after finding that data on the web could be accessed by anyone anywhere in the world (Chen, Beaudoin, and Hong).
Another study was conducted by computer science and technology experts about internet privacy concerns, and they aimed to identify student behavior regarding the online privacy paradox. The study was an experiment on students in Israeli academia, and the investigation was conducted through a quantitative method. It used a closed-ended questionnaire in which the students were asked different questions. The study conducted regression analysis using those questions, and it showed that computer science and information science students have relatively low levels of behavior associated with the privacy paradox. Accounting and business management students have relatively higher levels (Weinberger, Zhitomirsky-Geffet, and Bouhnik).
All the studies currently being completed about online privacy concerns examine whether a person associated with the internet is concerned about privacy. The answer is yes. Even a person who has no hidden information still needs to know the protection and privacy levels of their data. Nobody leaves 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 (Chen, Beaudoin, and Hong; Clemons and Banattar; Weinberger, Zhitomirsky-Geffet, and Bouhnik).
Some analysts are discussing this fact and recommending stronger online privacy. More than a decade has passed, and privacy issues have not been resolved. Different analyses are in progress concerning online privacy, and it has been highlighted that new sets of policies may help gain the trust of the general public in many ways. One of the main aspects discussed is that corporations like Google and Microsoft were using customer data for advertising purposes, but now the process may be carried out in a different way. Artificial intelligence has advanced, and the direction of searching for relevance has changed. Now, data does not necessarily need to be accessed or moved away from the user; related advertisements, connections, and linkages can be made so that the customer is satisfied and online confidentiality is also maintained (Clemons and Banattar).
Conclusion
In a nutshell, it can be concluded that online privacy is one of the leading concerns of an internet user. It would be harmful if a person’s data were misused or mistreated. Advertising agencies are trying hard to find ways to reach the databases of the world’s known corporations, but because of privacy protections, they are not allowed to do so. The good and bad sides of privacy are also discussed. Some of the most serious social issues arise because of a lack of online privacy, and if online privacy is damaged, the consequences can be highly risky. Cyberbullying is one of the primary results of weak or breached cyber privacy. Due to weak online privacy, young people may use their classmates’ and friends’ data, pictures, phone numbers, and addresses in the wrong way, which can lead to bullying and severe effects. Some adolescents have attempted suicide because of the social abuse of their private data after it was exposed to their friends (Chen, Beaudoin, and Hong; Clemons and Banattar; Weinberger, Zhitomirsky-Geffet, and Bouhnik).
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).
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