Modern Electronics and Personal Privacy - Essay Example

? (Your Modern Electronics and Personal Privacy The following paper discusses the impact that various means of effective communication, specifically the social media and the cell phones, have led to the breaching of people’s privacy. The growing influence of the social media and the resulting reduction in the privacy of the customers is analyzed. The focus of the paper will be on cell phone tracking and the dissemination of personal information by the cell phone companies. Moreover, the point of view of the companies will also be presented and the paper will strive to ascertain the feasibility of personal information dissemination after evaluating both points of view. Growing Influence of social media: The number of people using the social media has increased significantly during this decade. Facebook remains the leader with over 400 million users (Widerlund, 2010). With the increasing number of people in this media, the traffic volume on these sites has also increased. Now, the question remains, how private is our private information on these sites? All the networking sites on the internet require users to share their personal details ensuring that their information would be kept safe. However, with this assurance comes the condition that the information can be shared for the security purposes. This means that every individual that uses these sites is being watched by the security agencies every time. In addition, the information is vulnerable to be hacked and misused. According to Consumer reports magazine 2010, one fourth of the Facebook users are not aware of the site’s privacy policy, and 9 percent of them reported forms of online exploitation, the major one being, identity theft (Widerlund, 2010). One of the most criticized actions taken by some of the social networking sites is that the private information that users share with these sites are being further shared with the marketing or internet monitoring companies without the users’ consent. Moreover, the text messages that are users’ most private information are not all private. It can be used for security purposes. In addition, the users themselves cannot delete these messages. Therefore, once the message is sent, whether it is via chat, message or email, the users loose the control over it. It is a definite worrying point. People are of the view that popular networking sites such as Facebook earn their major chunk of revenue from marketing companies and, thus, sharing the users’ personal information with these companies is vital for them (Gaudin, 2010). Nevertheless, how right is this practice? Moreover, how long can this continue? This shall be discussed after every variable is taken into consideration. Although, the sites defend themselves by stating that the users are not reporting much issues and that the criticism is instigated by the competitors. In addition, that people are aware of the fact that when they come online, they do not expect their information to be 100 percent private. Moreover, these sites urge users to be active and smart in using these applications (Veer, 2011). Thus, the response of the social media is that they blame the propaganda and also the assumption of consumer awareness is taken as established. Still, questions need to be answered about the privacy in the chat messages, which are out of user control after they have been sent. No matter how much aware a user is, it is impossible to accept the fact that we cannot control our own personal space. Cell phones and privacy: When the question comes that if we would use a device, which can be carried along where ever we go, and which can be used to communicate in any way possible, our answer would rationally be, yes. But if it is further said that the device can also be used to track not only where we are, but also whatever we do and whoever we communicate with and however we communicate, the answer will be subjected to reservations. Well, to inform the readers, the device in question is none other than the cell phones that we carry alongside us wherever we go and we do not even know that we are being continuously watched over and our personal information is unceasingly being tracked (Charny, 2002). It is easy to judge that the location about the users can be traced by the satellite and the cell towers installed in each area to transmit signals. However, what is alarming is that the personal messages sent by the users to each other are also not personal anymore. Many cellular companies store these messages for different lengths of time, the longest of which can even exceed a year (Watson, 2011). It is this information, which the cellular companies do not provide to their users because one can imagine if people would know that each and every word they type as a personal message is being tracked, they would substantially reduce their messaging traffic. This concern is a major hurdle for the companies and prevents them from informing their customers from this fact. Assessing this point further, if the companies start informing their customers that the private information that they share on their cell phones is not at all private, it can be easily imagined what it can do to the sales levels of these companies. The rational that the companies provide is that this information sharing is essential for security reasons. It is imperative that the government be aided with whatever information companies can provide. Many criminals can be traced and tracked down in this way. Now, even if this argument was accepted, what about the distribution of information to the market research and the marketing companies which is carried out without the users’ agreement. There are laws enforced which disallow the interception of user information in terms of calls and messages without the users’ accord but some of the new laws regarding the messaging, on cell phones especially, are considerate in favor of the cellular companies as they allow these companies to store information for security concerns and thus information can even be made public if the issue is of public concern (Lawyers.com). Feasibility of privacy issues: Now that we have pondered over both the sides of the arguments, we are well suited for the discussion regarding what exactly should be the correct practice regarding the issue of the dissemination of private information by the cellular companies, or for that matter, by the social networking sites. The question now is that how ready is the user for this privacy dissemination. As it is mentioned earlier that 25 percent of the Facebook users are not fully aware of the privacy policies of the site, which is a substantial number. This substantial percentage is evidence to show that the customer awareness, as it is called, is not present in its complete form. The next question could be that while it can be understood that the personal information could be shared with the law enforcing agencies, but how feasible is it to share this information with the marketing or other advertising companies. The reason behind this question is that this can be a troublesome practice. This means, that the sharing of information is now subjected to the price factor and that the higher bidder will get the information. The third question is that why do the users provide every tier of information regarding themselves especially to these networking websites. Is it necessary for the users to blindly trust these sites? The answers to these questions rely on a number of factors. The most appropriate is that in the end, the consumer needs to realize the fact that whatever information they provide in terms of text messages or chat messages, it can be subjected to public diffusion. The very thought that personal information is not personal any more, needs to be inculcated in the users. Moreover, the cellular companies should also take up social responsibility and should not distribute users’ private information to the marketing companies without their consent. It may cause hindrance in the sales level, but corporate social responsibility is a topic that needs to be highlighted. Works Cited Cell Phone Privacy. Web. Retrieved from http://communications-media.lawyers.com/privacy-law/Cell-Phone-Privacy.html. [...] ---. Web. Retrieved from http://communications-media.lawyers.com/privacy-law/Cell-Phone-Privacy.html. [...] Charny, B., Cell phone tracking raises privacy issues, 2002. Web. Retrieved from http://news.cnet.com/Cell-phone-tracking-raises-privacy-issues/2100-1033_3-846744.html. Gaudin, Sharon. Privacy Questions Trail Facebook Messages - Computerworld. Computerworld - IT News, Features, Blogs, Tech Reviews, Career Advice. Web. Retrieved from . Veer Vander, Facebook: The Missing Manual, 2010. Watson, B., When It Comes to Cell Phone Privacy, You're an Open Book, 2011. Web. Retrieved from Read More