Online privacy is always an interesting topic for discussion. It is especially true nowadays with the development of new technologies and the popularity of Social Media. This article focuses on the comparison of the governance of online privacy in two countries.
Authors claim that the U.S.A. and China are making progress towards the establishment of the necessary policies. They also state that there are numerous threats to privacy. The leakage of personal information may lead to severe consequences. There are such reoccurring themes as problems with privacy on the Internet that are discussed throughout the paper. Current regulations are criticized, and current laws are considered as non-effective. The purpose of this article is to draw attention to this problem and explain why there are differences between the systems in these two countries. I agree with the opinion of the authors that the governments should pay more attention to this problem because the collection of the information is not regulated as well as it should be. However, I think that users can prevent most incidents and take necessary measures to prevent the leakage of personal information with the use of such instruments as proxies and anonymizers (Wu, Lau, Atkin, and Lin, 2011).
Nevertheless, some websites require registration, and avoidance of such Internet services would lead to a limited online experience. The authors claim that U.S. citizens are more educated on this issue (Wu et al., 2011). Meanwhile, the population of China mostly does not view it as a problem. I agree that there are dissimilarities that can be seen between the privacy regulations because currently there are numerous acts in the U.S. that address the issue of personal privacy, and it was viewed as not that important in China until recently. However, it should be noted that the authors discuss some of the limitations of these laws. Authors claim that the fact that no particular organization in China focuses on these issues is one of the biggest current problems. Wu et al. (2011) state that “analysis underscores that different social systems and cultures regard privacy to be an emerging right but offer different understandings and regulations in order to address online privacy” (p. 615). Differently put, there are differences between the policies in the countries because of dissimilarity between the cultures.
It should be noted that a few points in this article have caught my attention. What improvements could be made to the current laws that would guarantee the safety of the citizens? What expenses and resources would be needed to implement such changes? What is the number of cases that are related to this issue in the United States and China? How such cases would be regulated by courts? What other instruments could one use to guarantee his or her privacy on the Internet?
Reference
Wu, Y., Lau, T., Atkin, D., & Lin, C. (2011). A comparative study of online privacy regulations in the U.S. and China. Telecommunications Policy, 35(7), 603-616.