Part of the significant discoveries of the twenty-first century is the rapid and proliferation of social media not only among the teenagers but across people of all ages and gender across the globe. Nowadays internet has become a necessary phenomenon, with most people not understanding the dark effects associated with the regular posting of their personal information on the internet. Having a glimpse of someone's internet searches is obviously considered socially not good. In my work, I will argue that spying of people's regular internet searches is both politically and socially not recommended.
Mining data from people's regular internet search by relevant authorities like the Federal Bureau Investigation, US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and medical researchers are likely to create appropriate databases that are likely to expand and connect certain professionals to at least one closely guarded resourceful site which can be about family history, criminal activities and medical conditions. However, if not highly guarded, it can be leaked and wreck havoc, embarrassment and even more devastating and concrete harm. Take, for example; Paparazzi is an online malicious group that trawls the internet for internet consumer information and uses it for malicious gains. The paparazzi, secretly, spy on your personal information through various website browsers and cell phones to unknowingly harvest information on what you mostly fancy, mots sites regularly visited, and the kind of questions your periodically inquire about (Chatterjee, 1).
The dark of the internet is that it knows everything about you. The internet knows what you do, who you are and the worst thing is that it peeps deeper into your personal life than even the legal government agencies like the FBI and the IRS. Some people have argued that internet is the best way to find answers to our activities for the betterment of humanity. I disagree with them. As we continue to expose more and more of top secrets on facebook, twitter and google, there are people out there whose main aim is to fetch the data and sell it to marketers. Individuals like datalogix, Acxiom, eBureau, Peekyou and the like have been on record of extracting ordinary citizen's search sites and frequently asked questions and sell the same to marketers like Amazon who in turn bombard us with products that we least need and convince us to waste the little coins at our disposal.
Privacy is the new source of money. Social media is the threat to our privacy, “surely, if the official collection of specific data by the government is worrying what of the illegal harvesting of all information and shared by profit-making firms (Barnes & Susan 12)!
Conclusion
Based on the above evidence and explanation, it is therefore evident that internet sites should not be allowed to legally collect our information as this is deemed to be an intrusion of our privacy hence likely to jeopardize our safety, health and family issues. Currently, there are no better solutions to this. The problem of "Anonymization" is only applicable in theory. The "Do Not Track" assumed safety in Google Chrome is a little hoax (Chatterjee, 2). Not unless, the policymakers came with a working privacy tool that will be options for privacy by designing and not installation, the optional choice for consumers and marketers and marked with extreme transparency then the whole issue remains a threat to the privacy of ordinary citizens.
Work cited
Barnes, Susan B. "A privacy paradox: Social networking in the United States." First Monday 11.9 (2016); http://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1394
Chatterjee, P. "Big data: the greater good or invasion of privacy." The Guardian 12 (2013); https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/12/big-data-greater-good-privacy-invasion
