Privacy

For as long as Internet has been in existence, there has always been concerns about loss of privacy. Every time that you click from one website to another, you leave behind a large data trail which reveals information about you and your browsing behaviors. Companies have been using “cookies” to track consumer’s interests, location, and preferences in everything from favorite products to taste in music, and share this valuable information with other affiliates and advertisers to create a more “personalized” browsing experience. Yet most consumers have little awareness that this is happening. Joe Nocera wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times that data brokers nowadays have been able to identify and track consumers through their social media accounts, mobile platforms, apps and websites they visited, allowing them to build a very rich profile about the consumer. The brokers then sell these information to advertisers who then present targeted ads about products and services that the consumer is interested in purchasing in the near future. Nocera calls more government regulations on unethical business practices engaged by data brokers, more transparency for the consumers, as well as changing business processes allowing consumers to “opt-in” rather than “opt-out”.

In addition, cybersecurity has played in significant role in privacy and identity theft. Recent announcement of data breaches have hurt the consumers and businesses alike. Companies ranging from big-box retailers like Target and credit reporting agency Equifax, as well as medical centers and universities, have been targets of hackers trying to steal personal identifiable information. Millions of Americans’ personal data are affected as a result, and creates a lot of nervousness from consumers who are rightfully worried about loss of privacy. According to Dara Kerr, Target is taking steps to offer security chip-enabled credit cards to better protect its consumers. Nocera also noted that companies were not incentivized to prevent data breaches. He advocated that government should levy a fine against companies that do not adequately protect consumer data. 

Works Cited:

Kerr, Dara. “Target Works on Security-Heavy Credit Cards, after Breach.” CNET, 3 Feb. 2014, http://www.cnet.com/news/target-works-on-security-heavy-credit-cards-after-breach/.

Nocera, Joe. “The Wild West of Privacy” The New York Times, 24 Feb. 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/25/opinion/nocera-the-wild-west-of-privacy.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=1.