The Internet has eroded our privacy

IF you came to this column via the Internet, be assured that your visit
will be recorded, stored and retrievable in all its glorious detail - from
 the number of times you visit this site to the number of minutes you 
linger here.   
This will happen to you wherever you go in your cyberworld.
  If then, you arrived here on the back of your Mozilla Firefox browser,
Firefox has very kindly given your location to websites that requested it.
   This is done through a default in your browser that can be deactivated  
by you - if you were aware of it.        But how many of you did know?   
Not many I bet, but the question that nags me is why do they make it a
default rather than an opt-in feature in the full glare of publicity?
   Let's imagine that you have just landed on a website and your host asks  
Firefox, your browser, where you are.   
This is what Firefox says about their "location aware" browser plug-in:
   "Google Location Services then returns your estimated geolocation (e.g.,  
latitude and longitude) ...The information is exchanged over an encrypted 
connection to protect your privacy.  
"Once Firefox has your location information, it passes it to the website
 that requested it."   
You're on Firefox, right, but why did you see Google up there?
  Yes, you did, and Firefox and Google are a gaggle of blood brothers,
  let's say. 
 The aim for this intimacy is purportedly to make browsing more
efficient, and more efficient means all the Big Brother implications that
 sail with her.
  Get a friend to try this game on Google, your trusted search engine
  people.    
Take a topic in common and search the subject on your separate computers
and take a snapshot of the result.  
You will find that you will have two different screen pictures.
   The reason this is so is because Big Brother thinks he knows you and
 will therefore tailor your results to what he thinks will suit you best
 interest.   
To do this they will have kept a record of your past browsing, past
searches, and God knows what else that has happened between you and them
  in the past that is now securely kept in their records to match your
virtual personality.  
This is just one way the Internet has eroded your privacy and how it is
  probing -- ever more deeply -- into who they think you are.   
As my friend Azwan is fond of saying about this planet we're in, this is
  a Scary Mary world. 
 And thank you Azwan, I've just violated your privacy, but in that I'm
sure I'm not the first to be there.  
If you have been Scary Marying in your emails, the email service 
providers will have noted this usage many times a long time ago. 
 And someone selling a product named or even vaguely connected with Scary
  Mary will soon be emailing you or putting a pop-up note on your computer
  screen somehow.    
The clear irony is that the Internet, where great debates are being
waged about freedom and privacy and your right to be yourself, unmolested,
is also the place where secrets about yourself are most easily available.
  Take Facebook, for instance, that great marketplace in Cyberia where you
 let your hair down and tell all and reveal all.
  Facebook's privacy policy is a very interesting read with enough
  material to raise your hackles. 
 And oh, of course there's an opt-out button available.  
So when was the last time you read what Facebook has to tell you about
  their use of your personal information?  
And how many Facebookers really know how to opt out even if they want      to?
   And even if you want to die on Facebook it may prove to be well nigh 
impossible.   
Those who have deleted their accounts merely become old soldiers of
Facebook, and as you know, old soldiers never die, they just fade away, 
with Facebook lumbered with their personal details in a place where their
pet habits and address and proclivities are preserved for ever more.   
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook may have said that privacy is a thing of the
past but many of us still want to keep details about ourselves to  
ourselves in this snoopy-doopy world.     
In the latest development, Facebook has introduced face recognition  
software that is even now studying all those photos you have posted and
 putting names to facial features that will one day mean something  
sensational.    
You may fancy a lass and take her photograph and send it to Facebook,
 and you may be rewarded with details like her name, address, likes and   
dislikes and a few other things she may not want you to know.
  Data harvesting on the Interent is a real preoccupation of real people
  with different reasons with viewing glasses of many hue.   
Last year, a Canadian security consultant broke into Facebook and stole 
information from 100 million users.  

Wan A.Hulaimi.(2011 JUN 19).The Internet has eroded our privacy.The New Strait Times.