Tag Archives: privacy

Notes from today, and reading/viewing/blogging for Wednesday, October 5

I hope our privacy discussion got you thinking about your relationship to all of the information “out there” that is about you, and what rights you have to controlling that personal or private information. I found an interesting New York Times article about privacy on college campuses in the wake of the 2008 Virginia Tech shooting: “After Campus Shootings, U.S. to Ease Privacy Rules.”

On Wednesday, we’ll be discussing ethics in information and media, including copyright and fair use, open access, and plagiarism. For Wednesday, please read the following 2 articles:

Isserman, “Plagiarism: a lie of the mind.Chronicle of Higher Education, 49(34), B12.

Center for Social Media. 2008. The code of best practices in fair use for media literacy education. “Code” and “Principles” sections only.

and watch these videos:

Lawrence L. 2007. “The Law is Strangling Creativity

Faden, E. 2007. “A Fair(y) Use Tale.”

Your blogging homework is one reading response blog post; one comment on another’s post. Please make the blog post a substantial reflection on the readings and viewing; the comment should be shorter, but try to make it relevant and pithy. Not simply “I agree with your point!”

Slides from today are available here.

~Prof. Leonard

privacy online

To my opinion we have no privacy as soon as we click on the post button on any website. We generally sign up for coupons and discounts to some web site, they ask us to agree to the “terms and conditions.” I had taken one day to read the “terms and condition” of one third party provider and all it kept emphasizing is that personal information may be used by some other party and its agents. These days we are so internet savvy, many companies use the internet to transmit information, let alone some of these files get interrupted and find itself online,  these same companies will not tell their customers about errors so the person is aware of their private information online. Example of such like in the 2010 New York Presbyterian patient information leak, the play station was secretly gathering personal information which found itself on the net, finally the collection of peoples location by Apple (iPhone 4). GPS locator is a great device but someone could map all  trips you make and will be able to sell that information to another party even without your concern. These are just a few privacy concerns but they are lots more that have not being mentioned.

Internet Privacy

Both of these reading about privacy on the internet really shed some light on how vulnerable we actually are when sharing information online. We sometimes tend to feel safe because we are hiding behind a keyboard. We can say whatever we want, do whatever we want. But the truth is that everything we do on the web becomes stored data. When we search for a product online or visit a website we’ll more often than not receive ads for that product or site tailored just for us. When you visit a website it creates a cookie that can be retrieved later if you visit the site again. It can also be used to store personal data and passwords so you won’t have to manually enter it again. Sites like Google can use this data to tell you how many times and the last date that you visited a website. And can be used to track searches you’ve made. On Facebook you can see who’s single and who’s in a relationship. Who’s dating who. What sites or groups a person liked. A lot of people find it to be an invasion of their privacy but at the same time we do have some control of what we choose to put on the internet, although not all. And because it’s participatory this makes it hard to enforce strict laws to effectively protect users online.

Online Privacy

The reading on online privacy was very interesting and I learned a lot of stuffs that I didn’t know about and never even heard of. It’s like the internet knows more stuffs on you than you know about yourself. They keep track of everything you’ve done, they know the exact month, day and time when you visited a website, that’s something you won’t even remember. I think that’s not cool at all, why should every single thing that you do on the internet should be monitored and stored? We, users of the internet should have more control on our online activities, the advertisers should not be allowed to take our personal information without us knowing.

Online Privacy? Does it even exist?

Online Privacy

The reading was quite long and somewhat  informative. However, it did touch on some key issues that are currently plaguing us in today’s society. Which is privacy. Personally, i consider myself a very private person, i don’t like my “business” being out there. I trust very few people with sensitive information. However, the privacy described in the reading is online privacy. Mainly dealing with Facebook and Google. I don’t have Facebook, so i’m somewhat indifferent and i don’t mind the information Google keeps on me. I actually find it beneficial because the purpose of them gathering any information about me is for advertising purposes. If only my television were like this i won’t have to sit through another Always Maxipad commercial. Other privacy concerns are GPS tracking your every move with smartphone technology. So what? I ask. I’m not going anywhere that i would be ashamed of, if anything this makes it less likely that i’ll be accused of a crime. I’m sure the recent execution of Troy Davis won’t have happened if he had a smartphone that helped with his alibi. On the other side of the coin, i can understand how people would feel concerned about their privacy and who is gathering information about them. Although Google gives them the choice to opt out of the program, I prefer Facebook’s option to opt in to their Beacon program. In conclusion, i feel unless an individual really has something to hide, then all the fretting about online privacy should be nipped in the bud. If this whining continues we might have to start paying for  services like Gmail, google maps, youtube, just because someone doesn’t want people to know they eat Taco Bell at 4 am in the morning.

The Myth of Privacy in Today’s World by Randell P.

As we’ve discussed in class and as most of us have witnessed through online experience, privacy is something that is often violated. Unfortunately, violators of privacy don’t have a gaping scar on their face or wear an eye-patch. Often time they are someone you know, or, someone you’ve never even met in your life. Sounds grim right? This is the world of the internet now. Advertisers claim that the information that they TAKE from us with or without us knowing is for our own good because it targets certain ads for our interests. So it is almost like taking someone shirt or other belonging that they hold dearly because the thief will give them shirts just like it and of course, it is for our own good. There are new laws that are going to be incorporated into the FCC rules this November for the internet, but the maker of the website FreePress.org I believe feels that they aren’t strong enough. I heard it on the radio in the morning. Lets see what happens to the future of searching the net and the privacy pirates in the next few years.

-Privacy-

The readings explained that it can happen anytime that our privacy can be invaded; in where such people try to get our personal information for their own use. So, as this happening we need more protection when using electronic devices and storing our personal data. As we surf many websites the internet offers we don’t always realize what we really putting ourselves into, due to the fact that search engines will record some of the information that the user has been searching for. Many people would agree that we need privacy in everything because it should not be shared without their permission and is one way to keep personal information from hackers or any kind of people who use others personal data as to their advantage. Social networking sites like, Facebook now has changed and somehow invaded the privacy of several people in which it shows everything that someone has done while using the website.

Privacy no longer exists

In the reading “Online Privacy” it explains  to us how we no longer control that anymore, because it is easy to obtain an information anytime that it is needed. We the users felt safe at a certain point  up until now that technology have advance and should protect us, but instead facilitates it for everyone to get the information needed about an individual. They give you all these loads regarding how you can back up your prize information online to obtain it when the time come and do not guaranty any safety when it comes to that. Leaving something on the world wide web means pretty much anyone savvy enough with a computer can find there way of extracting the information. A great example of that is facebook. In the reading titled “Facebook’s Privacy Trainwreck.” it tells us how many users panicked when they introduced them to the news feed feature on facebook. How there privacy was less concealed as it was before.

Your reading & blogging assignment for Monday, October 3

Next Monday we’ll be discussing privacy, especially how the definition is changing. We’ll spend some time reading and discussing the challenges to privacy presented by use of digital media and online networks.

There are two readings for Monday: Marshall, P. (2009). Online privacy. CQ Researcher, 19, 933-956.
boyd, d. (2008). Facebook’s Privacy Trainwreck. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 14:1, 13-20.
Your blogging assignment is one reading response blog post.

Slides from today are available here.

Enjoy the short week – remember, the college and library are OPEN all week!

~Prof. Leonard