Who Owns the Data? Privacy in a Digital Age

It becomes a controversial that we all need to take care of our own privacy even if the data is online but the explosion of the use of the Internet has made privacy hard to be protected when data goes online.

* Are we aware of our own personal information being posted online?

• Teenagers post their own personal lives on social networks such as Facebook without any awareness of the effect they will cause.
• There are companies using our personal data to promote their sales.
• We leave more and more traces on the Internet, when websites collect our traces deliberately. They can even know what kind of people we are without even meeting us in reality.

The problems caused by these issues of privacy data is that: first, a lot of people, especially younger generations, don't pay much attention for this issue. And since these privacy problems have existed way before the Internet had been invented, people therefore think it is okay and acceptable for the turbulence of the privacy online. But what is to be aware of is that, when the information goes online, it spreads much quicker than we can image.

Also, there are companies who deliberately collecting our information when we browse the Internet. First, their motivations of doing this is questionable. They might claim that it is only for business uses. But are these uses really legal? Some of the companies even collects our information without our permissions. And we are normally not aware of the fact we are leave information for them.

As we gradually leaving more and more information online. Companies know more and more about what kind of person we are such as what type of food we like, what brand of products we normally buy, what websites we go to routinely, what music we like to listen and so on. In this creepy way, they know what kind of people are without even have to meet us. In some senses, they can provide what we need and want. Thus, we could be easily controlled.

How Companies Learn Your Secrets http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html

This Creepy App Isn’t Just Stalking Women Without Their Knowledge, It’s A Wake-Up Call About Facebook Privacy http://www.cultofmac.com/157641/this-creepy-app-isnt-just-stalking-women-without-their-knowledge-its-a-wake-up-call-about-facebook-privacy/

Everything You Wanted to Know About Data Mining but Were Afraid to Ask http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-data-mining-but-were-afraid-to-ask/255388/ The Secret Life of Your Personal Data [[http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/01/10/network-michael-rigley/