Internet Privacy

This morning I read the weekend Wall Street Journal and was really intrigued by the cover story of their Weekend Journal: "The Great Privacy Debate". For the past week, I've been reading the journal's coverage of internet privacy as they've been spreading the word about tracking cookies and data mining.

As you'd expect, one writer took a positive stance of web tracking having its benefits, and the other was anti-web tracking.

The first article, about being web tracking and its benefits, has a lot of good points. As users of the internet, we should know that part of us being online means that we're giving up some information and, in turn for giving information, we're getting a personalized experience while we surf the internet.Ads made just for you!

I don't know about you, but sometimes the ads scare me.

That's why, I'd have to agree more with the second stance that says we shouldn't take web tracking so lightly. The writer made a good point in fearing the way we seem to care less and less about our privacy and treat the internet as a diary – something we can confide our secrets and information in – without considering the consequences. “Personalization’s evil twin is manipulation,” he states.

I think that we should be wary of the information we choose to post on the internet. Unless you really don't mind people being able to track you down through your internet history, then you can carry on. However, it would be a shame if our world turned into the one Cory Doctorow depicted in "Scroogled".