The problem with techno-voyeurism
MONTREAL (CUP) —- Drunken exhibitionists beware -- your friends may not be the only ones reading your MySpace blog about how you got trashed last weekend and slept with your significant other's best friend.
Anyone could be reading your profile page at this very moment: your mom, your professor, your employer, even the government. Which is precisely the concern that has some drawing lines in the sand over what is public information and what should remain private on the Internet.
Over 100 million people use MySpace. Any combination of them can post obscene comments about your raciest photos, and an even larger pool of people can take a peek at your profile.
Users post accounts of drug use, drinking escapades, sexual adventures, and other personal information without batting an eyelash over who exactly can peer through their proverbial blinds. If you don't want creepy strangers lurking outside your bedroom window, perhaps you should reconsider what you post on the Internet -- it may come back to haunt you.
In a June New York Times article, several employers admitted to looking up job candidates on the Internet. They didn't come away from their searches empty-handed.
A recruiter in the U.S. googled a chemical engineering student's name and found that [he] “likes to blow things up.” Other college students were turned down for jobs when employers found photos of them smoking pot or passed out from drinking.
Using the Internet to look candidates up is like virtual reference checking with someone much less forgiving at the reins -- you.
Montreal MySpace user Michelle Sayer, 26, offers her advice. She doesn't post anything she wouldn't show her mother.
“There's also the fact that once anything is on the Internet, try as you might to remove it, it's been saved and hidden away somewhere. All these kids posting half-nude pics of themselves smokin' blunts are gonna grow up one day. Do you think they'll ever want to run for president?” she writes to me. “The world is changing; for better or for worse, the information is out there, and it's basically beyond our control.”
Sure, we can all moan and groan about our rights and privacy being violated, but all's fair in love and war -- and technology. After all, you may control the information you volunteer on the Internet, but you can't control whose hands it ends up in.
This sentiment of futility resonates with millions of AOL users whose search terms and user ID numbers were published in early August.
According to The New York Times, “AOL removed the search data from its site” almost immediately, but by then it was too late. One enterprising reporter found Thelma Arnold, a 62-year-old Georgian woman, through what she looked for on the Internet.
At what price comes the Internets overwhelming amount of information, and the free and unfettered access to it?
Users who are particularly cautious about the data they volunteer online can't take full advantage of technology. That said, most people who use the Internet are willingly providing the public sphere with more personal information than what would have been acceptable 20 years ago in any capacity.
Are people feeling less inhibited, or are we just really naive?
Most of us would concede we already feel like we're being monitored by the government and the authorities, so what's a little shopping around for pornography?
But what you look for on the web may be used in Internet profiling -- and that's opening up an entirely different can of worms. In an August New York Times article, an American privacy rights advocate says we're staring down the barrel of a “ticking privacy time bomb.” And this time bomb looks a lot like the movie Minority Report.
Last year, some of Google's search data was subpoenaed by the American Justice Department, and while Google succeeded in keeping its files under lock and key, AOL willingly divulged them.
“The Justice Department sought the information to help it defend a challenge to a law that is meant to shield children from sexually explicit material,” wrote Times reporters Hael Barbaro and Tom Zeller Jr. “There are many thousands of sexual queries [. . .] that raise questions about what legal authorities can and should do with such information.”
Like stopping crime before it happens?
In Minority Report, authorities in 2054 rely on three “precogs” that see into the future to prevent crimes by detecting people's intent before they break the law.
While these perceptive beings may not exist, the Internet certainly does, and it sees what you're looking for at 3:30 in the morning. Will governments be allowed to access this information for the express purpose of selecting and monitoring candidates for high-risk activity? Or have they already begun the process?
Conspiracy theories and all, the Internet is a dangerous playground where one must tread with caution, but it's also a wonderful tool for the wide dissemination of information. Just be careful what information you volunteer -- you never know who's looking over your shoulder.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
Anyone could be reading your profile page at this very moment: your mom, your professor, your employer, even the government. Which is precisely the concern that has some drawing lines in the sand over what is public information and what should remain private on the Internet.
Over 100 million people use MySpace. Any combination of them can post obscene comments about your raciest photos, and an even larger pool of people can take a peek at your profile.
Users post accounts of drug use, drinking escapades, sexual adventures, and other personal information without batting an eyelash over who exactly can peer through their proverbial blinds. If you don't want creepy strangers lurking outside your bedroom window, perhaps you should reconsider what you post on the Internet -- it may come back to haunt you.
In a June New York Times article, several employers admitted to looking up job candidates on the Internet. They didn't come away from their searches empty-handed.
A recruiter in the U.S. googled a chemical engineering student's name and found that [he] “likes to blow things up.” Other college students were turned down for jobs when employers found photos of them smoking pot or passed out from drinking.
Using the Internet to look candidates up is like virtual reference checking with someone much less forgiving at the reins -- you.
Montreal MySpace user Michelle Sayer, 26, offers her advice. She doesn't post anything she wouldn't show her mother.
“There's also the fact that once anything is on the Internet, try as you might to remove it, it's been saved and hidden away somewhere. All these kids posting half-nude pics of themselves smokin' blunts are gonna grow up one day. Do you think they'll ever want to run for president?” she writes to me. “The world is changing; for better or for worse, the information is out there, and it's basically beyond our control.”
Sure, we can all moan and groan about our rights and privacy being violated, but all's fair in love and war -- and technology. After all, you may control the information you volunteer on the Internet, but you can't control whose hands it ends up in.
This sentiment of futility resonates with millions of AOL users whose search terms and user ID numbers were published in early August.
According to The New York Times, “AOL removed the search data from its site” almost immediately, but by then it was too late. One enterprising reporter found Thelma Arnold, a 62-year-old Georgian woman, through what she looked for on the Internet.
At what price comes the Internets overwhelming amount of information, and the free and unfettered access to it?
Users who are particularly cautious about the data they volunteer online can't take full advantage of technology. That said, most people who use the Internet are willingly providing the public sphere with more personal information than what would have been acceptable 20 years ago in any capacity.
Are people feeling less inhibited, or are we just really naive?
Most of us would concede we already feel like we're being monitored by the government and the authorities, so what's a little shopping around for pornography?
But what you look for on the web may be used in Internet profiling -- and that's opening up an entirely different can of worms. In an August New York Times article, an American privacy rights advocate says we're staring down the barrel of a “ticking privacy time bomb.” And this time bomb looks a lot like the movie Minority Report.
Last year, some of Google's search data was subpoenaed by the American Justice Department, and while Google succeeded in keeping its files under lock and key, AOL willingly divulged them.
“The Justice Department sought the information to help it defend a challenge to a law that is meant to shield children from sexually explicit material,” wrote Times reporters Hael Barbaro and Tom Zeller Jr. “There are many thousands of sexual queries [. . .] that raise questions about what legal authorities can and should do with such information.”
Like stopping crime before it happens?
In Minority Report, authorities in 2054 rely on three “precogs” that see into the future to prevent crimes by detecting people's intent before they break the law.
While these perceptive beings may not exist, the Internet certainly does, and it sees what you're looking for at 3:30 in the morning. Will governments be allowed to access this information for the express purpose of selecting and monitoring candidates for high-risk activity? Or have they already begun the process?
Conspiracy theories and all, the Internet is a dangerous playground where one must tread with caution, but it's also a wonderful tool for the wide dissemination of information. Just be careful what information you volunteer -- you never know who's looking over your shoulder.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
