Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Privacy Controls

I am torn on how I feel about CEO Eric Schmidt's statement. On one hand, my personal adult hand, I feel that my privacy should be kept private. However, on the other, my mother hand, I feel that my children may be somewhat more protected from predators whose privacy is not protected.
Personally, when I think of where I would like my privacy protected I think of online banking, credit cards, and bill payment. I do not feel those should be public at all. However, online sights such as facebook, twitter, etc. I feel unsure if any or how much should be public. If these sights were to become public then, yes it may be easier to identify and turn in predators. However, the majority of predators would be informed of the change and find a new avenue of approach. Not to mention, now all or some of my children's information would now be public to view.
It is a tough call. I think that the thought was with good intention but the action may give adverse results. People, myself included, also begin to feel with the loosening of privacy controls we as a society are losing more and more of our freedoms. To have someone, anyone, tell you what is allowed to kept private and what is not, is a personal violation. I fear what is next? If the government is allowed to remove your privacy on the web, then where will they focus next?

2 comments:

  1. Your perspective from the "mother" standpoint is often lost on those without children. I agree that strengthening privacy controls to protect children has it's benefits but how can we isolate just that demographic? As you mention, when someone else blatantly decides for us what personal information should and should not be private, we often feel violated. However, we have learned through our readings, online social networking sites(most notably Facebook) have been doing this in very subtle ways, so that many of us don't realize it at all. Interesting blog post!

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  2. Great points! Certain things should be kept private such as you mentioned (bank accounts, bill payments, etc.) I do agree on the fact that childrens privacy controls are important and help protect are children and provide saftey. As much personal infomration that we put on the Internet, and we think is private, the questions still remains how much actually is?

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