It became obvious that with time, we have less and less privacy on the Internet. Today, it is very easy to find some personal information about someone: you only have to enter his name on google and click on the pages that pop up. Even if we are aware of this dangerous change, we keep putting personal information on our social network. As this article mention, nowadays, internet users want to be able to know why we need to provide these personal information and how they are used. I am one of these users. Something has to be changed in the way our information are used. We have absolutely no clue on how and where our personal information go when we sign up on a website... Also the article :'Privacy-Enhanced Personalization' makes us understand that, our information are not only used in order to provide us "personalized ads" but are also used in some goals we are not aware of (I imagine things like spying or surveillance). It should increase our alertness.
After reading the article, a question came to my mind. We all know that the privacy guidelines are, most of the times, very long and unclear and that basically no one take the time to read it because of its complexity. Why are we not creating a law that would force the website to give us shorter and more explicit privacy guidelines, so we could at least be aware of what are our rights of privacy on this specific website? I think it would already be a great step forward in our quest to have more knowledge on what is done with our personal information.
I actually proposed the same question about making the terms and conditions and everything shorter. They're probably long so all the things they don't want you to disagree with are hidden throughout, because people don't read. I mean, yes there are hackers and if someone wants your information badly enough, they'll find a way to get it. But everyone needs to read what they're signing and be aware of the sites they're on. If everyone stopped agreeing to giving away their information, it's possible this problem would decline some.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the idea of shortening the terms and agreements. It will help people actually read it and get a fully picture of what is going on. Knowing where your information is going is huge. It creates more trust for the users and will lead to more Internet use and personalization.
ReplyDeleteI like your writing, i think that we should really reduce the length and complexity of the terms and agreements so everybody could understand them.
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