As children grow up, their parents stress upon them the importance of safely using the internet: never releasing too much personal information, and always using caution when signing “terms and Conditions” and consent forms. My analysis demonstrates however, that more and more frequently, companies make it difficult to avoid giving personal information, and make it so that when you do give it out, they are able to publicly release it, without any liability issues.
This is not solely my opinion; a similar point of view was also voiced by Iakiv Iagolnitser in his Blog. Iakiv talks specifically about Facebook and how the more information their users make public, the more money the website makes. There is clearly not much incentive for the website to offer personal protection; rather there is a fairly large motivation to try and get people’s information to be public. Before reading my classmate’s blog, I naively believed that because Facebook offered so many privacy settings, the website must be safe. I now see that this is not accurate. Although Facebook offers various privacy settings, they are frequently updating them, and simultaneously, making a whole new wave of users’ information available to the public, without the users knowing.
As marketing reporter Susan Krashinsky posts in her article, “The research findings raise concerns for the privacy rights of Canadians. Web leakage can involve the disclosure of personal information without an individual’s consent– or even knowledge”. This breach in confidentiality, thus far, cannot cause liability issues. At this point in time, it is just bad business ethics.
Categories: