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Rachel –> Internet

Rachel takes on the Internet – What is it and what will it become?

Privacy

Filed under: Uncategorized — rachelkang at 2:42 am on Wednesday, September 28, 2016

I agree to the terms and conditions.

I agree to the privacy policy and terms of use.

How many times have you glanced past these sentences before?  Hastily scrolled through endless paragraphs to check the boxes at the bottom?

In class, we discussed how certain websites display specific advertisements that target users who are interested in those specific things, thus increasing the success rate of such advertising.  Such websites are able to do this because they have access to information that we “permit” them to have access to.

Is our privacy being violated if we consciously choose not to read about the ways in which we may be allowing our privacy to be violated in writing (even if that writing isn’t our own)?  And to what extent do such websites specify how much of our privacy they will be invading?  What is the wording like?

To what extent is the invasion of our privacy legal?

How true is it that nothing can be “deleted” from the web?

How closely is our every move on the Internet being watched?

1 Comment

13

Comment by Mike Smith

October 3, 2016 @ 12:09 am

I love the questions you’re asking. Many of them have no easy answers, but it is important to think about what you do know, what you might know, what isn’t clear, and what’s definitely not possible. Jim teaches a whole course on privacy, and thus I’ll skip that one. Instead, I’ll focus on your last question — we’ll try to address your penultimate one in a later class period.

I have Ghostery installed in my browser. It helps me know a little about who’s tracking me and why. I encourage you to visit https://www.ghostery.com/ and learn a little for yourself.

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