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Surrendering Our Privacy

There is a plethora of privacy concerns the public has in regards to technology. Companies and government agencies can track our digital footprints, accomplishing everything from exploiting our shopping habits for profit to surveilling our contacts for national security threats. Even more concerning, criminals can use technology to hack data and steal identities, causing harm to both the individual victims as well as to the organizations that suffer the cyber attack. To combat this threat, an entire industry of cybersecurity has developed. These security companies promise to keep private data secure from bad actors, but the majority of our private data is actually used with our consent. 

While most people are aware of the risks that come with using digital communications, we generally accept them as the cost of using modern technology. There is, however, a number of Americans who are ignorant of the privacy risks of internet usage, and an effort is underway to encourage "digital literacy" for those individuals who do not know how to spot nefarious attempts to access private data (Bergström, 2015). But even innocuous information like where we shop and who we spend time with is used to comprise a profile that major corporations like Amazon, Marriott, and Starbucks utilize in order to better market to consumers in the pursuit of higher profits. We may not like the idea of being spied on and analyzed by companies to improve their advertising, but for many, the convenience of online shopping and enjoyment of social media outweigh the drawbacks of big data.



References:

Bergström, A. (2015, July 23). Online privacy concerns: A broad approach to understanding the concerns of different groups for different uses. Computers in Human Behavior, 53, 419-426. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.07.025

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