Personal Privacy and Companies Essay -- Essays Papers

Personal Privacy and Companies It is certainly a different world nowadays. You can no longer go on the internet and surf without the potential threat of your privacy being compromised and invaded. When the internet first became big you didn’t hear a lot about the issue of privacy and computers. Maybe it was because the public was naà ¯ve, but that is not the case anymore. This issue is fast becoming the heart of heated debates about how to save your privacy. Privacy is a term that is dfifficult to define, it’s different to everyone with about a zillion interpretations of the words exact meaning. So let’s take the time and gain a better understanding of it’s meaning. According to the Webster’s dictionary, privacy is seclusion or isolation from others – secrecy. On the surface this doesn’t seem like it would pertain to information systems, but think again. Everything we do on the Internet has the risk of being watched or observed. It may be from other c ompanies or scary enough the government. This issue is fast becoming the number one concern from users of the web. How can these people keep tabs on me? Technology has been a definite blessing, it’s also has the potential to be dangerous. A good example exists right here on campus. We use our social security numbers for virtually everything, from registration to purchasing books at the bookstore. If this number fell into the wrong hands it could prove disastrous to the person of that number. They would then have full access to any and all information they chose to use. They could access your banking files, your credit report and credit card numbers. They could ruin your lives in a short period of time. So in this respect privacy means a lot more than just i... ... other from access the customer’s information without consent. They will be able to choose the level of privacy they wish to have. While some analysts feel that they don’t see a trend toward software geared the consumer for at home protection, there is a definite surge toward the protection of clientele information. While most companies make a profit off of their customer information databases by selling them to third party companies, some companies like Earthlink have developed a competitive priority not to sell the information. They feel that the information they have on their customer is a privilege to possess and that the customer trust us by giving Earthlink their loyal business and we do not want to violate that. As technology grows so grows the need for companies to listen to their customers and implement a solid privacy policy that the people can trust.