In the modern age we are faced with new issues that arise on a daily basis. One of the newest and in some peoples eyes; the most disturbing is online privacy. We used to have a few settings to set for online privacy but these days we cant seem to stay protected. We have all been there and remember when it first started. We saw pop ups and ads on the sides of websites that showed similar or exact products we had previously searched for or read about. Then it dawned on us, its not a coincidence. The INTERNET is watching what we look at and then targeting us by advertisements.
This may not seem like a huge deal but when we consider what these sites can learn over the course of a few months it can be quite scary, especially when we had no idea sites were following what we were looking at. These sites now know our daily habits, interests, hobbies, income, age, location, sex, and so much more. We are now grouped into small niche markets in order for companies to advertise and boost profits.
This all seems a bit sketchy because most of us did not know this was all happening and most don’t know how to protect themselves, this article did pew surveys and most are not happy so they give a few tips on how to stay more protected as well as talk about possible solutions like opt out policies. If we don’t want to be watched we shouldn’t be, especially our kids and young adults who don’t seem too concerned with things like this because they often don’t realize the magnitude of their importance. And if we do then we should receive compensation for the information we are giving out. Right now it’s a one way policy and were getting the short end of the deal, even though there was and is no deal.
Another concern is the utter lack of protection on cellular devices. Its almost way scarier than computers…except they are computers, just smaller, less protected versions. These cell phones even let you be tracked by your location. They learn your day to day habits, where you shop, how long, how often, where you travel. Its quite scary especially when we see almost no benefit when these companies take our info and sell it to then advertise to us trying to entice us to buy buy buy when we should save and make responsible choices. Our capitalist society is getting worse and worse and we are quickly loosing sight of whats important for the next trinket we can buy on sale because we see and add online and “need it now.”
