The Internet has never been popular than now. With a rapidly growing user base, the internet has become a household thing that is used by almost everyone in the house for activities such as entertainment, shopping, education, and socializing. While the Internet itself is a blessing for anybody who uses it, there are also several issues related to the use of the Internet, which have raised controversy and are becoming more complex as the technology progress. Two of these issues, namely, privacy and freedom of speech with regards to the Internet have been discussed below.
Privacy
Privacy can be defined as the ability to control the information about oneself and be free from surveillance and intrusion. In the older days, it was a daunting task to keep surveillance on a large population, with security agencies using people to spy on others. Then the surveillance cameras became a vital source of keeping an eye on the people. Now, well into the era of computers, the internet is being used to keep a tab on people.
A strong argument raised by the advocates of privacy on the Internet is, that people have the right to protect their identity and must not be watched or tracked without their consent. However, a search engine like Google and Yahoo!, keeps the record of searches worth trillions of bytes, which most people don’t know about. Although in these records, users are identified only by numbers, these searches not only reveal about the activities of an individual, which many would consider private information, it can also be used to identify a particular individual using a strategy called re-identification, where a particular individual’s search record could reveal information about his/her area, things he owns like property or car, the team that he/she follows and habits that he/she might have. Another example is logging personal information on a website. Many websites on the internet, log clicks of the users, which they use to display relevant ads or items. Though this act may not identify the individual, it is considered by some as a privacy issue since the activities are logged without their consent.
Another argument given in favor of privacy on the internet is that anything which is uploaded to the internet as private should remain private. This is because important personal data, such as photos and videos, posted on public websites, to be seen by family and friends, face severe privacy threats, as they can be downloaded by anybody including criminals such as rapists and can also be used for manipulation.
On the other hand, after the event of September 11, 2001, Terrorism has seen a tremendous change and it is a fact that terrorists use Internet-based services to coordinate their activities. Thus it has become important for security organizations of the country to eavesdrop on services like email and VOIP for surveillance in order to minimize this threat. Activities like fraud and the release of confidential information by criminals can not only jeopardize the security of a person but can also create a threat for a country. In these cases, source or origin and all possible information revealed through logs and records, about the criminal can help in the investigation leading to the punishment of the culprit while reducing the threat significantly (Baase).
Due to the privacy issues mentioned above, I do think twice about giving out personal information on the internet. Now, I only trust the website that has a track record of maintaining customer privacy and has an effective framework in place to deal with threats that could lead to the leaking of my personal information without my knowledge or consent. I also maintain a weblog, but I make sure that it contains no or minimum information that can be used to identify me. I also maintain two email address, one which is known only to persons whom I know and trust, while I use the second one generally as it does not have any data or email which contain my private information.
Regarding the solution of privacy issues on the internet, it is believed that these issues can be minimized with proper legislation and security framework, though they cannot be eliminated. Regarding the logging of activities of the user, it should be optional, not mandatory. The user should be made aware of any activity which could lead to invasion of privacy. Websites holding private data of their users should take the concern more seriously and allow the user to select which part of their data should be visible to the public. However, the online availability of the data is a threat in itself, as the security can be compromised by exploiting the bugs present in the system on which the data is stored or it can be leaked by somebody. (Base)
Freedom of Information
Freedom of information or freedom of speech or expression with regards to the Internet refers to the right of an individual to express oneself and access web content without any censorship or restriction. While not a major issue in the early days of the internet, it has become a major discussing point as both companies and the government try to censor data. (Bowers)
An extension of freedom of speech on the internet is freedom of information that allows for expressing oneself with privacy. This means that anybody can discuss private issues anonymously on the Internet, such as their health problems and marital life issues, which are generally not discussed in public. Furthermore, it also serves to raise public awareness about these private issues and help in resolving them.
Freedom of Expression on the Internet also allows people to reach a much larger audience at a cheaper price compared to other forms of media such as TV and Newspapers. There are millions of blogs maintained on the internet which people to express their feelings and thus let the outside world know of facts that might be censored by the government on other media. (Baase)
Though freedom of expression is the right of every individual, an issue of critical importance is his access of children to prohibited materials. One of the negative points of the Internet is that the service provider cannot determine if the user is a minor or not. This has been further complicated by the issue that search engine has made access to information very easy, including pornography, information related to hazardous materials such as explosive making, and materials that promotes racism. These can even come in the form of emails.
Another negative aspect of Freedom to express oneself on the internet is Spam or Unsolicited Emails. While anybody cannot be stopped from emailing any individual because there is the freedom to impart information on the Internet, the recipient doesn’t need to want that email. Marketing companies and scammers exploit this freedom and use email as a tool to send out an email to a large number of recipients to promote their products or scam people. It is because of this reason that a large number of emails generated today are Spam. And the only way to deal with such emails is by filtering them. Though filters have improved a lot since they were invented, they are still not perfect, hence only filter a portion of what is required. (Baase)
By expressing myself without any hesitation, I feel much more comfortable with my feelings and it also allows me to give a second thought to my ideas based on the responses that I get by sharing them. On the other hand, to avoid spam, I try not to give out my email address to sites that I don’t trust and read the terms and conditions carefully when I give it out, ensuring that it is only used for the purpose I give it for.
As far as access of children to pornography and other prohibited material is concerned, legislation is recommended which would force websites holding these materials to use a positive ID method similar to the one used in the superstore. All adults should be required to register and issue an ID that they can use to access restricted material. For Spam, it is suggested that all the websites which use the email addresses for marketing purposes should be asked to emphasize this fact to the user when their email address is being taken. It is also recommended to discourage practices like certified mails and the formation of a body that deals with the regulation of marketing and scam emails. (Baase)
Works Cited
Baase, Sara. A Gift of Fire: Social, Legal and Ethical Issues for Computing and the Internet. Prentice Hall, 2008.
Bowers, Jeremy. Censorship and Free Speech. 2006.