Question

Consider how data is gathered as our online presence continues to grow. What impact, if any, does this have on your online habits? Do you feel the idea of privacy online is slowly disappearing? Provide examples.

Answer 1

If we look around, many big technology companies such as Facebook, yahoo, google, apple or Microsoft are continuously growing and likewise in future too. It is unlikely to see if any of the online users has accounts in these companies or uses their services on the day to day basis. When it comes to social networking portals, they have vast volumes of data about these online users to use this information to generate commercial value through online users browsing habits and personal data. And researches also show that this trend will continue. Many mass surveillance events happen to generate awareness among public towards User protection and privacy civil rights. Considering this, big players in technology world should modify privacy terms to record online habits of users and linkage of user data with their actual identity. This seems very dangerous practice in future. With this thought, social web portals can do more to protect the user private information. For example, collect the user data wisely by declaring what data is collected and use it for limited time; or checking with user on opting out from various online offers or let user maintain their private information. Regardless of what big organization does it is always good to educate people, children or families about data privacy and security and making them understand that the posting personal details or pictures online is not a good habit, and this can generate risks.