Essays on Online Privacy

Introduction to Contracts

Just like any other website dealing with social media, Facebook has terms of service that users must accept by clicking on a box before they go on to create an active account. Many legal experts around the world have questioned the legality of the Facebook terms of service seeing that the agreement process is just ticking a box. However, such terms of service are legally binding, and a violation on either side can result in a legal issue. For instance, agreeing to the terms of service allows face access and use of your personal data for research and another ...

Online personal data has in the recent past become the epicenter of commerce in regard to data brokers. This is illustrated by the growth in data mining companies such as Acxiom. The growth in the trading of data is attributed to the growth in demand for such data by private entities and government agencies among others. While the mining and commercialization of data is not a secret undertaking, many individuals are oblivious to this fact. This is illustrated by the vast amount of data points that people post online. Such data points include birth dates, sex, relationship status, credit ...

Terms and Conditions may apply

People are usually fast to agree on terms and conditions on online platforms without necessarily evaluating the risks associated with accepting. Online privacy policy typically utilizes the information of the users that can be displayed to third parties as well as government corporations; such a measure hinders the independence of one’s personal information. Individuals often do not read all the information provided since it is always bulky. Such a situation is amongst the factors that hinder people from going through all the information that requires a person to agree with before proceeding with the given process, for example, ...

Introduction

Growth of the online market and developments in online platforms have given rise to new media marketing, which refers to the use of social media, mobile platforms, and search engines to reach out to customers (Herman, 2011). New media tools facilitate exchanges of information between marketers and consumers. Easy transmission of customer information on the Internet has led to the issue of consumer privacy (Hann et al., 2007). Consumer privacy refers to the prerogative of consumers to be left alone or be free from unsolicited intrusion, consumer control over access to personal information they share online, and concealment of ...

Introduction

Invading the privacy of businesses, institutions, and people, social engineering creates criminal acts using telephones, illegally accessing private information via computer accounts called "hacking", stealing bank account information, as well as eavesdropping are social engineering crimes. Two types of social engineering exist, including, human and technological based (Peltier, 2010). Social engineering uses deception, manipulating people into giving them personal information including social security and bank account numbers (Halles, 2008). Social engineers use tactics to extract private information including appealing to people's vanity, authority, look, over peoples' shoulders while entering pin numbers, and eaves drop. In his article, "Mitigating the ...

New technologies provide people with enormous prospects and allow them to do several things in a more competent, opportune and expedient way. Simultaneously, they present people with harsh and difficult questions when we realize some of the ethical insinuations connected with the assorted technologies the world at present have or are probable to have at their disposal in the future. For instance, a New York Times online edition issued on 11 June 2006 disclosed that human resources managers are increasingly declining job applications because of material they found on them on social networking sites. However, one may appraise this development; it ...