Blog: Privacy

With new media comes the issue of one’s privacy and confidentiality online. Users of new media need to be more knowledgeable about the behind-the-scenes of what they are getting themselves involved in by participating on these websites. One of the most obvious invasions of privacy is with targeted advertisements showcasing what you had just browsed on another unrelated website. Another invasion of privacy is how employers are beginning to screen potential employees by looking up the person’s social media profile. Of them all, the most damaging is that the user has just increased their chances of identity theft when they post personal information such as birthdays and email addresses on their profile pages. To dig deeper, the user leaves a digital footprint when they are utilizing the internet and what that means is data is collected about where you normally shop and which websites do you frequent for instance, and this data is turned into useful information that can be sold to other companies without the user's knowledge. It is not to say social networking is a negative thing because it certainly has its benefits, rather it is more of using the websites in a manner that prevents you from exposing too much about yourself to the world.