Do You Really Think Online Privacy Exists?

Author:

Laurie Sullivan

Source:

Eduard Goodman calls himself a "privacy guy" after a dozen years in the profession. The chief privacy officer at Identification Theft 911 keeps close tabs on industry shifts and believes people in the U.S. think of privacy in a limited context.
 
 
Americans consider a privacy leak to be people taking personal information without their permission and committing identity theft, but few understand what privacy means when it comes to companies following a person's footprint through the Internet to target ads. Personalized ads provide convenience, but it means companies know everything about consumers, from what search queries they make to the coffee they drink to the books downloaded from Amazon onto their Kindles. The information is indexed, downloaded and cross-referenced.
 
Goodman and I both adopted the Internet early. So, I asked him, "Do you really believe online privacy can exist in any form?" He said "At one time I was a big believe in the old statement 'On the Internet no one knows you're a dog.' That's no longer true, and the concept erodes a little more every day."
 
Today, there's a bit of privacy on the Net, depending on how intelligently you behave online, but it's slowly starting to disappear, Goodman says. That's not necessarily a good or bad thing, but rather a double-edge sword ...
 
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