"Have you ever Googled yourself ? Have you ever checked your virtual identity? Do you know that you leave a digital footprint every time you get online? Do you know that whatever you do online is accumulated into a digital dossier traceable by others ? These and several other similar questions are but the emerging tip of the sinking iceberg.One that is packed full of concerns related to issues of our online identity and privacy issues."
"Michael Fraser calls it the ''rubbish web''. That is the internet we will be left with in five to 10 years unless governments and cyber corporations fix the holes that allow criminals to infiltrate the world wide web and strip global citizens of their identity, money and dignity, he believes.
In his bleak view, those who can afford it will retreat behind private corporatised security walls."
here is another very good reason for "Googling" yourself - to find out if any private and sensitive information about yourself and / or your family has ended up online somehow. Maybe you accidently changed your Facebook privacy settings and your mobile phone number is now public? Or maybe a disgruntled former friend or colleague is bad mouthing you online? Both of these scenarios have happened to me in the past and speaking from those experiences, I can assure you that these are things you need to be aware about right away so you can do something about it. At the very least, too much information about you online can lead to a serious risk of your identity being stole
"95% of Millennials claim to have taken action to protect their online privacy, which is good. Everyone needs to be looking after themselves, especially on the internet, since identity theft is a thing. That still blows my mind. Someone can take your life away over the internet. At least 95% of the Millennials are safe, right?"
Do Not Track is a personalized documentary series about privacy and the web economy. If you share data with us, we'll show you what the web knows about you. This documentary series will explore how information about you is collected and used. Every two weeks, we will release a personalized episode that explores a different aspect of how the modern web is increasingly a space where our movements, our speech and our identities are recorded and tracked.
"We all know that the delineation between public and private was eroded by Facebook a long time ago. Over. Done. But now Facebook's sheer scale is pushing it in a new direction, one that encroaches on your authenticity.
Facebook is no longer a social network. They stopped being one long before the movie. Facebook is really a huge broadcast platform. Everything that happens between its walls is one degree away from being public, one massive auditorium filled with everyone you've ever met, most of whom you haven't seen or spoken to in years.
Last week a bunch of massive sites across the web, including TechCrunch, adopted Facebook commenting. The integration of the formatting and fonts is so strong that when you're reading comments you actually feel like you are on Facebook, not a tech focused vertical site.
This latest push by Facebook to tie people to one identity across the interwebs is very troublesome."
"More than 5 million online U.S. households experienced some type of abuse on Facebook in the past year, including virus infections, identity theft, and for a million children, bullying, a Consumer Reports survey shows.
And consumers are at risk in myriad other ways, according to our national State of the Net survey of 2,089 online households conducted earlier this year by the Consumer Reports National Research Center. Here are the details: "
"SOME 7.5 million of the 20 million minors who used Facebook in the past year were younger than 13, and a million of them were bullied, harassed or threatened on the site, a study released yesterday said.
More than five million Facebook users were 10 years old or younger, and they were allowed to use Facebook largely without parental supervision, leaving them vulnerable to threats ranging from malware to identity theft to sexual predators, the State of the Net survey by Consumer Reports said."
Somewhere in the world a sad little band of trolls must be smarting at yet another derision of their good name! It makes the famous New Yorker cartoon quote seem so naive, and yet it could be extended to reflect the changing times "on the Internet nobody knows your a dog but it's bleedin' obvious your a TROLL'. I went onto read the comments which were also interesting. Perhaps this artlcle is a little harsh and castes trolls in a bad light since trolls are only exercising their right to freedom of speech FOS. Some trolls maybe subversive in a good way! The quandary of privacy, online identity & FOS is further explored in the comments Tx for your post.
I agree, Ann. There are some awesome examples of people using social media to bring about a positive change in the world, and without exception they were motivated by empathy and an understanding of being a global digital citizen. We do the world a disservice focussing on the trolls etc.
Whether you like it or not, your internet activities are being monitored every time you log online. In this infographic you can learn more about who's tracking who....
"We now live in a world where the topics of technology and privacy seem to work hand-in-hand. Gone are the days of buying a brand new TV or video game console where concerns of surveillance never existed. Now, our smart phones and tablets can act as TVs while tracking our location via GPS or wi-fi. The new batch of consoles set to come out later this year are both going to come with high definition cameras, with one of them confirmed to be active 24/7. Not only that, but now people are concerned about other possible emerging technologies such as facial recognition and thumbprint scanning. But are these fears warranted? Or are we simply becoming too paranoid and suspicious of companies and the technology they hand us?"
"Typing your own name into Google may be an eye-opening experience. Even if your personal information isn't easily accessible, your computer may be sharing information about habits, preferences and activities that you'd prefer to keep private. Here's how to keep a lid on what your computer shares about you with strangers."
There are no secrets online. That emotional email you sent to your ex, the illness you searched for in a fit of hypochondria, those hours spent watching kitten videos (you can take that as a euphemism if the kitten fits) - can all be gathered to create a defining profile of you.
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Your information can then be stored, analysed, indexed and sold as a commodity to data brokers who in turn might sell it to advertisers, employers, health insurers or credit rating agencies.
There's another mining boom you may have missed. It too involves paying young people six-figure salaries in their first jobs, and exploring deeper for resources that may have been previously overlooked. But it's not about driving trucks or digging holes. It's about building algorithms and crunching facts and numbers. It's mining for data.
People are trading their privacy for influence! This irreversible global trend is shaping a communication battleground that will impact on every aspect of our future.
The concept of relinquishing privacy is a scary proposition for many people, generally in loose correlation to their age. Similarly the idea of a profound change in societal influence is generating resistance and fear in traditional power centres and institutional mediators of meaning. Governments, corporations, media empires and a host of heritage institutions and their practices will change dramatically as contemporary forces shift the nature of influence.