Your privacy in the digital age, does it still exist?

Submitted by admin on Thu, 12/04/2008 - 5:42pm

These days online privacy is mentioned quite a bit. You hear about identity theft, hackers, and data collection among other things. There are many people and business’s out there who are willing to sell, purchase, or use your information to look at your online shopping, browsing, and e-mail habits. Many of these companies are actually well known corporations and always claim that your data is safe, anonymous, and secure. Even if that was the case I rather not anyone or any computer have the capability of accessing my personal habits as they please.

One big name I hear often is Google. Google is the biggest search engine ever to hit the net, and they keep on getting bigger. One of the reasons Google has become the giant it is, is in part due to its huge database of habits by virtually anyone who has gone near a Google service or product. Google Chrome Logo

One example of their collection techniques sparked a lot of controversy. Their new browser “Google Chrome” has been the talk of the tech community and privacy advocates alike. This browser, not one of my favorites, is sleek, simple, and probably the most well designed private investigator known to man. Google claims all of the data will be erased, ip’s will be somewhat blocked after 18 months and your data being identified only by your browser, and their servers. Apparently, none of your data is stored on your computer. Great, so none of My data is stored on MY computer, where is it stored then? It’s stored on THEIR servers, out of my hands. You can try many techniques to hide your ip address, opt-out of tracking etc. but they are usually meaningless and do nothing to hide your habits from software like the Google chrome browser.

Another big company who tracks your habits is Alexa. Alexa claims to use your browsing habits to help better improve Amazon.com’s marketing. Alexa is looked at by many as another alternative to the Google PageRank system, I tend to differ with that idea since it is very easy to spoof your rankings with Alexa and much more difficult with Google’s PageRank system. I still remember when I first started to hear about Alexa their name

went hand in hand with tracking cookies and Spyware. They have managed to avoid that perception nowadays although I still believe this to be the truth. Alex seems to have managed to make people believe their companies practices are now legit and acceptable, they have got to be the most successful company that has managed to convince people that their obvious tracking behaviors are okay and don’t threaten you the user.

I believe that although these giants have a lot of people’s data, it is still possible for your to get into the wrong hands, privacy as we know it no longer exists and it keeps getting smaller and smaller as these giants get more and more of your personal data. Imagine if this data got into the wrong hands…..