Big Brother is Watching :: Essays Papers

Big Brother is Watching Privacy in the Information Age. Have you sat down to eat dinner, just as you put that first bite into your mouth the phone rings. You know better than to answer it, but you do any way. To your dismay you find out that you were right Tele-marketers? As you hang up you wonder how did they get my number? How do they know what are your interests, likes, dislikes? You hand the cashier a plastic card with a magnetic strip which contains your name and address. All of your purchases are recorded and a few days later you receive discount coupons for a new product you might like in the mail. You think that targeted marketing in the information age really works! A woman feels she may be expecting, she goes to the pharmacy to purchase a home pregnancy test. Without thinking, she hands her â€Å"bonus card† to the cashier and a few days later she receives mail from baby product manufactures. She is thinking that she is living in an information age nightmare. Information technology, and particularly the internet and the World Wide Web, can provide benefits that were only dreamed of a decade ago. These new opportunities, however, raise questions about potential threats to personal privacy that are just now starting to be understood. Consumers, for example, like â€Å"one on one marketing† at Miscellaneous Web sites which allows them to browse various selections recommended based on previous purchases and their personal profile. They are much less sure about the site’s developing real time profiles of users based on demographics or psychographics. Similarly, workaholics are attracted to internet dating services that promise to find high achievers their ideal mate; They gladly spend thirty minutes completing the extensive introductory questionnaire. They are less thrilled when they later find that â€Å"E-Mate† has been acquired by another company specifically for its extensive data base of personal information. Our concern is the privacy of personal information in a digitally networked world where personal data can be input, stored, sorted, analyzed, mined, transmitted and exchanged globally with increasing ease and decreasing cost. There is growing concern about data privacy, especially on the Net which is accompanied by marked disagreements about what can, and should be done. These differences are exacerbated by very real cross-cultural and cross-national differences in values, history and economic philosophies. Where national borders are not even speed bumps on the information superhighway.