“Leave me alone!” “This is mine, get out!” “Don’t look! this is personal!” That’s often what I’m thinking when someone is interfering with my privacy. According to dictionary.com, privacy is a right. “The state of being free from intrusion or disturbance in one's private life or affairs: the right to privacy” (dictionary.com). Seeing as how I live in a quad with three other girls, doesn’t help the fact that I like my privacy, and my alone time. That’s what privacy is to me: alone time, doing something alone that no one else needs to care about. My business. Do I get privacy this semester, though? Of course I don’t. To me, privacy is something that I’ve always had. My own bedroom is a good example; I could close the door and get away from other people, and do whatever I wanted in peace. Relating to Internet privacy, my computer is like my bedroom (Although it is smaller and doesn’t have hello kitty sheets). I can talk to my friends on AIM, check my e-mail, listen to music, search for things on Google, go on facebook…oh yeah and do some homework. But because there is no one looking over my shoulder when I’m on my computer, does that mean that all the places I visit online has complete privacy? I don’t think so.
“Internet privacy consists of privacy over the media of the Internet: the ability to control what information one reveals about oneself over the Internet, and to control who can access that information. Many people use the term to mean universal Internet privacy: every user of the Internet possessing Internet privacy” (Wikipedia 2007). To a certain extent, everyone does have internet privacy. If we want it, there shouldn’t be people posting where they live, their cell phone numbers, and every possible favorite thing on MySpace. Although I have a MySpace account, I keep it completely cut-and-dry, no personal information at all. I also made my profile set to private, so that only people that I confirm can look at it. Same with Facebook. I feel Facebook is a more private website than MySpace because you have to confirm anyone to be your friend and see your profile. Also on Facebook the farthest I go with putting personal info on there is posting my screen name, e-mail, and birthdate. My sister is one of those MySpace “junkies,” and she had been having some problems with some creep-like old men wanting to friend her. It’s crazy how the privacy option isn’t mandatory for the website, because anyone, anywhere in the world, could have known many private things about my sister if she hadn’t switched the privacy option on.
“… people are now well aware there are video cameras and Internet cookies everywhere – there is abundant evidence that people live their lives ignorant of the monitoring, assuming a mythical level of privacy. People write e-mails and type instant messages they never expect anyone to see. Just ask Mark Foley or even Bill Gates, whose e-mails were a cornerstone of the Justice Department’s antitrust case against Microsoft” (Sullivan 2006). I feel that I have privacy on the internet, in my e-mails, and instant messages, because I never think about anyone hacking into my computer, or having internet cookies placed to see what I’m doing and who I’m talking to. It’s a very scary thought to me that people can see what other people are doing on the computer without them being aware of it. I like my privacy. I like having my own room, and having my own computer. It’s something that I will always value and I hope it never gets taken away from me!
privacy. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved February 15, 2007, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/privacy
Sullivan, Bob. 2006. Privacy Lost: Does anybody care? Retrieved February 15, 2007. From http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15221095/
Internet privacy. (2007, February 11). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23:08, February 15, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Internet_privacy&oldid=107292821
No comments:
Post a Comment