Internet users provide social networking sites with an unlimited amount of personal data. Marketers and other organizations such as the government can obtain information as the user creates their profile and personalizes their webpage.  

Social networking sites such as Facebook allow us to keep in touch with family and friends. But are we exposing too much personal information on the web? People may feel like their personal information is only available to friends that they have accepted on their site. However, are users really in control of who views their profile? According to Giselle Abramovich from the DM news, Social networking site MySpace has launched an initiative to capture personal information from the profile pages and blogs of its 110 million active users, and then use that to target ads.

 Internet users need to be aware of the privacy issues within social networks. “Marketers can now easily extract information from these sites and use them for data mining purposes. There is a tremendous amount of insight from the collective user data on social networking sites, such as MySpace. The information users post about themselves, their likes and dislikes and how and where they spend their time and money, can all be mined and used for improved targeting”, according to Solomon.  

If people are concerned about privacy then they should not be posting private or personal information on their profile. Especially now since  “social networking site Facebook, has changed tack and begun to publicly list members’ profiles on search engines such as Google and Yahoo!” (Google News)

With the new PIPEDA Act that was recently past by Canadian legislation, companies should be informing the person if there is a possibility that their information could be used for research purposes.   

Resources

PC World 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,137331-c,onlineprivacy/article.html 

Google News

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iWsMIytjvcGtnN9Q6ob6X3YHC3BQ 

DM News

http://www.dmnews.com/cms/dm-news/internet-marketing/42509.html 

Data Mining Solutions

 http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue2_5/maxwell/index.html 

Wired Online Magazine

http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2004/05/63623

  Should Canadians be concerned with Privacy Issues now that we have new laws to protect our privacy?  

“A major concern of Internet users is that their personal data is used only for the purpose it was provided” (Class Lecture).

People become very skeptical when they are asked to provide unnecessary personal information while using the internet. As internet users we have to question where the information is going when we sign up to various websites.  Providing personal information should be optional unless we are shopping online and checking out.  If we are simply browsing the web and are asked for information we should really question where that information is going. 

 Even with the law in place there is already a company that is violating the law.  A recent study indicated “that DRM is being used to collect, use and disclose consumers’ personal information for secondary purposes.” Digital rights management (DRM) technology used in MP3s, DVDs, and most consumer software may be violating Canadian privacy laws, according to a new report ( Rafael Ruffolo, IDG News Service). With this in mind we have to question how effective will the new law be and how is it going to be monitered.  With the new law internet users might feel safer but in truth are not. People might provide more information because of the new law.  However in realtiy their information may not as safe as they think.  According to google news “Three quarters of the countries in the world have no privacy regimes at all, and among those that do have laws many were largely adopted before the rise of the internet,” he told the Guardian” “It is said that every time you use a credit card, your details are passed through six different countries.” A lot of data is being outsourced from Europe and the US to India, for example, but India does not have any privacy regulation,” he said.”Europeans and Americans want to know that their privacy is protected, and Indians themselves, as they come online, will also want these protections.” (Matt Chapman, vnunet.com). Although the canadain government is trying to protect internet users privacy, we still have to question which websites are secure and which are not.  It should be up to the company to ensure that their customers information is protected and the information is only being used for nessesary purposes. If the information is being used for secondary data the company must state that to the internet user and ask them for permission.    

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070919.WBcyberia20070919164343/WBStory/WBcyberia

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2198733/internet-privacy-concerns-harm

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,137404-c,mp3players/article.html