Blog 4-Online Privacy

When we log onto the Internet, little do we know that our every move can be tracked. Companies are spending millions of dollars to track Internet users every move so they can have a better understanding of their market and the users preferences. But how much is our privacy at risk? Some say that privacy does not exist anymore and we are always under surveillance by the government, advertisers and companies. There is a sense of insecurity now when consumers log onto the Internet.

The way that companies have been able to track our preferences on the Internet is through cookies. By placing cookies into our computers they can track our every move on the Internet and watch what we read, what we are interested in and buy. By tracking the users, advertisers will be able to put up personal advertisements depending on what interests the user.

No software can help prevent these cookies from being placed onto our computers and if you were to block them, then you would have limited access to the Internet sites. It is a no win situation for the Internet citizens.

For some time we have had the federal government on the citizens side banning cookies to track users, the government created this ban so the citizens would have privacy. Although recently, they have reversed the nine-year ban and are going to allow the government and companies to track our every move.

According to Joshua Miller from Fox News he says, “the shift in policy is being billed as a way for government to enter the 21st century and for federal agencies to use the same technology utilized on news sites, retail sites and social media networks.”

The question is why does our privacy have to be taken to transform with the 21st century. They should make privacy the number one priority as technology becomes more advanced, not take it away from the consumer As citizens of the United States, it seems like we are no longer covered by the Fourth Amendment and our every move will be watch by cameras, the Internet and the telephone.

The government is trying to transform this new bill into a three tier process when it comes to tracking users. “OMB is currently considering a three-tier approach that would track users over single and multiple Web sessions, either to analyze Web traffic statistics or to remember the data, settings and preferences unique to individual users,” said Miller.

The government is trying to make it so they can track the consmers on all different levels of the Internet. The consumers need to restrict the information that they put out on the Internet because it will not be private.

Right now, online privacy is a major issue that needs to be taken seriously and put back into the citizens hands. The consumer needs to feel safe when they log onto the Internet and they should not feel like all of their private information is going out to the public. Instead of the government changing with the 21st century and take away privacy, they should be changing technology so that the consumers are more protected.