In that regard, one of the sources of complication is that notions of privacy reflected in traditional sources of civil and criminal law evolved long before the prospect of digital communications and information storage. Nowadays, typical Internet and cellular telephone use generates informational trails that contain vast amounts of information about computer and cell phone users that is, at least arguably, entitled to the conceptual standard used in law: reasonable expectation of privacy (DeCew, 2008)
That is not to say that laws cannot be devised to protect privacy in the digital medium; but the prospect of doing so raises complex issues of competing interests, rights, and concerns. In principle, non-governmental entities have much greater latitude in connection with the line separating individual privacy and corporate action in collecting and disseminating information (Larsen, 2007)
In principle, non-governmental entities have much greater latitude in connection with the line separating individual privacy and corporate action in collecting and disseminating information (Larsen, 2007). For example, the Supreme Court very recently ruled that government law enforcement agents may not conduct warrantless tracking of individuals, such as through the use of tracking devices on private motor vehicles (Levin, 2012)
On the other hand, businesses such as major search engines like Google, cellular telephone service providers, and government authorities alike that depend on information collection and analysis point out that there is a fundamental difference between data such as the conversational content of conversations or the identity of recipients and data such as the triangulated physical location of the user based on signals emanating from digital devices (Larsen, 2007). The 27 nations of the European Union have recently moved in the direction of resolving that issue in favor of the importance of protecting individual privacy rights over certain digital information (Sengupta, 2012)
Internet Privacy Issues The digital revolution has already changed contemporary society in numerous ways. One of the more important emerging issues is the need to balance the privacy concerns and rights of individuals against the rights of government and private sector entities to collect, store, and share various types of digital information about individuals, especially without their consent (Stein, 2011)
. Risk to Internet Privacy In today's technological world, millions of individuals are subject to privacy threats (Bamberger & Mulligan, 2011)
In late 2007, Facebook launched the Beacon program where user rental records were released on the public for friends to see. This initiative was cancelled, though, following a lawsuit from a nonprofit foundation that challenged Facebook's right to aggregate and disseminate personal information in this fashion (Brodkin, 2009)
These trends have created an entirely new set of expectations for privacy, especially when people are in public places. Although surveillance cameras have become almost ubiquitous following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the use of digital cameras in cell phones and other wireless mobiles devices has become commonplace and the chances of digital images finding their way into the global information stream has increased as a result (Buchholz & Rosenthal, 2006)
These issues have become even more salient because of the proliferation of social networking sites as discussed further below. Privacy within social networking sites Currently, there is a wide array of social media networks available, including social sharing sites such as YouTube and Flickr and social networks such as Linkedln and Facebook (Hensel & Deis, 2010)
This is the greatest possible threat to individual liberties as it strikes at the core of a person's dignity online and their ability to trust websites they actively engage with and rely on for their work or social lives (Dhillon, Moores, 2001). Facebook is among the most egregious of violators, with a history of being hypocritical in their approach to personal information privacy while building a business model worth many billions of dollars (Chai, Bagchi-Sen, Morrell, Rao, Upadhyaya, 2009)
Internet Privacy The greatest challenge to the legal foundations of the Internet is the continual assault on individual privacy, brought about by continually loosening standards as to how personal data is used, stored and tracked online. Foremost among these threats is the relentless use of personal data from websites, social networks and other online forums where people are coaxed into giving up as much data as possible to support advertising strategy-based business models (Christiansen, 2011)
Foremost among these threats is the relentless use of personal data from websites, social networks and other online forums where people are coaxed into giving up as much data as possible to support advertising strategy-based business models (Christiansen, 2011). This is the greatest possible threat to individual liberties as it strikes at the core of a person's dignity online and their ability to trust websites they actively engage with and rely on for their work or social lives (Dhillon, Moores, 2001)
Facebook is among the most egregious of violators, with a history of being hypocritical in their approach to personal information privacy while building a business model worth many billions of dollars (Chai, Bagchi-Sen, Morrell, Rao, Upadhyaya, 2009). The Threat To Personal Privacy Online Despite the many stated policies and programs that the world's best-known Internet sites have for protecting consumer information, it is in reality often sold to marketers or used as the basis for creating marketing services on their own (Dinev, Hart, 2006)
It also sets the precedent of allowing for successfully greater levels of information to be captured online and all coordinated back in a consolidated view of all activity of consumers (Rutter, 2007). While Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are used for tracking information customers provide, tracking website visitors' activity without their knowing and then selling it will eventually comprise their identity as well (Earp, Anton, Aiman-Smith, Stufflebeam, 2005)
Why this is such a threat to the legal foundations of the Internet is that it sets a very real threat of websites being able to collect and sell personal information and get away with it. It also sets the precedent of allowing for successfully greater levels of information to be captured online and all coordinated back in a consolidated view of all activity of consumers (Rutter, 2007)
86% of those surveyed favored an mandatory 'opt-in' standard for online privacy protection, in other words, that a consumer had to agree to give all of his or her data to a site, before the site could store or utilize it. (Ries, 2001) But online businesses, consumer advocates, and government regulators have very different views about the proper balance between industry self-regulation and government regulation to protect online consumers from unfair and abusive business practices
When such forms of communication are utilized to post personally detectable student information, the student privacy rights are associated. (Baskin; Surratt, 2001) A rapid view at the Web indicates that there exists a minimum of 50 million URLs ready to be browsed through Yahoo, Lycos, Web Crawler and similar search engines
Normally the educators and parents never desire that their children come across any thing considered harmful, however simultaneously the media and politicians have capitalized on such incidents to enhance their own interest. (Brooks-Young, 2000) Relying on the mode of configuration of a school system the parent can prospectively monitor the unexcused absence of their children
The electronic commerce will decline the business costs as companies are able to take the benefits of enhanced access to customers, products and suppliers worldwide along with more and better customer marketing information. (Buchholz, Rosenthal, 2002) Consumers will also be benefited from the declined prices and wider product selection that generate the flow from ease of understanding to more and better consumer information and more vendors
These personal pages are quite unique and incorporate extensive variation of the quantities and types of materials; they sometimes include the connection to other pages around the globe. (Cartwright, 1996) The embarrassment that we face with this shift in standard in based on the fact that there have been several abuses of the Internet