COM 340 Post 4

Australians give fake information online to protect their real information from being misused. Young users are especially guilty of doing this as well as not reading the sites terms and conditions. This is listed on websites and you must verify that you read them before moving on. Customer confidence is lacking for these businesses which are damaging their trust as well as image to consumers.

If this is already happening in Australia I don’t doubt that people in the US are already doing this as well. Privacy online is a thing of the past and will continue to diminish as times go on. If people feel that they will not be punished or no one will find out they are providing false info they will continue to do so. Marketing questions have become more personal and giving information has become more instant than years before depending on the way they are asked. In reaction to this news, I think people should filter what they release online. It’s alright to fib if you feel your number will be given to marketers, but some of the time that data is useful to companies. That data could be used for their internal marketing department and possible hookups or promotions can be sent through email or phone number. It a personal decision to what information you choose to release though.

I think the web will never have the full trust of the public. On the flipside of that, they can start with small steps to gain some ground on that. This can possibly be done by ensuring that somewhere on the site their info won’t be sold to outside marketers. This must be visible so the site browser will read it instead of hiding it in the terms and agreements wordy text.

Sites that are https can give a sense of security, but how often are we checking for that in the web browser? This generation has grown up in an era where our business has now become everyone’s business online. Crying to the government about privacy is something we can self-govern. We have broken down those privacy walls ourselves when dealing with social media. If a change needs to be made for privacy we must take a set back and evaluate how we present ourselves online. If you don’t want your business out there then don’t post it for the world to see. Once your life is online it can never be erased.