NOTW's last hurrah to its readers
News of the World was a British tabloid newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. that was shut down over allegations of its journalists hacking into several thousand peoples’ mobile phones in search of gossip. Alleged victims range from high-ranking government officials, to members of the royal family, and even murder victims and families of people who perished in 9/11. The scandal has shaken the powerful News Corp. and raised concerns about its influence over the media and governments of countries in which it owns media outlets.
The main issue in this hacking scandal is the serious lack of respect that News of the World had for people’s privacy in their quest for stories. Privacy concerns have been growing over reports of data breeches, like the one Sony’s PlayStation Network users experienced, and over questions of how much information companies can obtain covertly without notifying users. For example, Google’s Streetview technology doesn’t just take a picture of your house, it also collects information from your wi-fi (like websites you’ve visited and searches you’ve made) and saves it in a database. When it comes to privacy, especially in this ‘information age’, where are the lines drawn?