The overload of privacy problems that plague the internet is very overwhelming. The efforts put forth to enforce privacy laws become futile as internet technology quickly outdates these legislations. It only takes two years for the evolving technology to render these privacy laws “useless”. Because of this, there needs to be a method that will always match laws with the real-time situation. Privacy promoters have said that self regulation is the best answer to privacy problems.

Self regulation is the self imposition of privacy related programs so as to avoid attacks on privacy. With or without the law, self regulation is the moderation of the use of gathered personal information by companies or groups that collect such data. It is a voluntary action that follows a clear set of rules about how a certain business can safeguard privacy. Self regulation could be done by website advertisers, data brokers, ISPs, social networking sites, apps providers, etc.

The United States has implemented self regulation since 1997. Until now, this initiative has been promoted by way of publishing information and encouraging websites to work towards using it. Currently, not one self regulatory effort that was implemented has sustained success. Some had the chance to begin, but failed in one or more substantial ways. Other efforts only ended up as plans that never really showed what their objective was before they vanished. Self regulation can really help to solve privacy problems if relevant reforms in its implementation are prepared. There is a general thought that consumers themselves should be the ones responsible for safeguarding their own privacy.

The popularity of social networking encourages users to share personal information with many people, not only with their personal acquaintances. In order to widen their circle of “friends”, they literally open themselves up to the entire internet community. It is observed that privacy is no longer as important as it used to be. Additional technology is always becoming available and this makes data sharing easier and more exciting.

There are interesting facts behind those who use Facebook. There are about 800 million users, and they can be categorized into three groups. The first group of users includes those who use it at least once daily. The second group consists of those who use it at least once a week. The third group is comprised of the members who use it less often than once a week. A telephone survey of 2,000 adult respondents was just conducted involving the use of Facebook. The survey focused on how often these respondents think of their privacy in connection with social networking.

The overall result of the survey showed that the more users sign on to Facebook, the less they become concerned about privacy invasion. One respondent candidly said that he does not really care if people know about his online preferences or habits. This user admits that he uses Facebook several times a day, either to connect with his friends, or to play a popular Facebook-based game.

Users are generally choosing faster speed as one of their most wanted capabilities in a web browser. There is a host of information waiting to be accessed on the web, and innovations and advancements in web browsing technology are always progressing. Day in and day out, new products are released, promising better online experiences and higher capabilities. Kindle Fire, Amazon’s latest gadget, is to be released on November 15, 2011. According to predictions in the market, this will be the closest competitor of the iPad.

The product is a full-color, 8GB, 7-inch multi-touch tablet with the new web browser called Silk. Among its advantages, this browser can give users faster surfing speed and increased battery life. Along with Silk, Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud, or EC2, will be used to route all web connections from Kindle Fire to the web page. Whenever a user goes online, it is clear that “everything” between the user and the internet passes through Amazon’s EC2.

The aforementioned fact has triggered a new wave of privacy concerns. In a website, one blogger wrote that all of the user’s web surfing habits cannot escape Amazon’s Cloud. He was also apprehensive because users will become open to Amazon, which can track everything that they do online. Amazon did not hide this fact in its Terms and Conditions for using Silk. It expressly declared that with Silk, URLs and certain identifiers will stay in its server for 30 days.

It used to be that collecting personal information from users on the internet seemed normal. There were no questions asked as to why it was being done, or for what purpose it would be used. Users would unquestioningly provide their names and email addresses when they registered on a certain website. Later, social networking sites would ask users to give more sensitive personal information. Even then, users uploaded their data to different web companies without having any privacy concerns.

Things changed when targeted advertising was popularized by some online companies. They used this collected personal information to send advertisements to users. From shared data, these companies accumulated enough information that they could build profiles of users. Privacy advocates came in and told people to be more careful when sharing their personal information. In spite of serious consumer education regarding this issue, more privacy concerns and problems appeared.

A time came when websites presented their privacy policies to users without hiding anything. They gave people the choice of whether or not to share their personal information. There are companies that openly tell their users why they are collecting this information, but with technology that is continuously improving, more subtle ways of data gathering are invented.

Social networking has already saturated the internet. There are the three giants – Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ – that have become very popular together with their “Like”, “Follow” and “+1” buttons, respectively. Now, there is no problem about pages being liked or followed, because many people do like what they read on the web. The problem is the fact that users can be tracked on every page that contains these sharing buttons, even if an individual does not click any of them. You can then become a target for advertisements, but even worse is that you could lose a lot of privacy.

This unwanted tracking is happening without the user’s knowledge. Information sharing technology has become so advanced that codes can be embedded into every page. This is most common among social networking companies. What they do is integrate codes within the file sharing button on a web page. The code is activated as a user visits the page, unknowingly recording the individual’s “presence” and compiling a profile of his or her preferences. Since this is done continuously, the user becomes a target for advertisements based on the kinds of pages that he or she visits.

A current newspaper editorial about online anonymity has generated a great deal of comments. The editorial declared that in these modern times, anonymity of people should be limited. The writer declared that the online community is laden with too many anonymous comments that are polluting the internet. The article also suggested that newspapers should ban these anonymous comments entirely. The writer states that these have only added to the volume of online trash, which is mostly made up of false accusations and name-calling attacks.

The article was bombarded by criticisms, saying that this kind of argument is both inaccurate and dangerous. For one thing, maintaining online anonymity helps to protect different groups of people. He admitted that anonymity is open to abuse by some, especially those who are spreading malicious comments without limits. This, however, does not warrant that anonymous comments should be banned completely. There are many newspapers that have established policies concerning this issue, while others have entirely banned such “freedom”.

Those who banned it reason that they want to maintain online civility. No one questions this, and any newspaper should always strive for it. Then again, there is more to being identified online than just by a person’s name. Those who are not working against anonymity said that identification poses a great risk. This risk is one that hinders people from speaking out for the fear of retribution. They also pointed out that the past has a lot of stories to tell about unidentified writings that have made great contributions to humanity.

With the disturbing privacy problems that never sleep, lawmakers are looking for more ways to better protect children. There is an existing law that specifies protection for children when they go online. Businesses are required to follow special rules when they collect and use personal information from children. Lawmakers have always taken a diverging stand on this issue. The members of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce are not in agreement on deciding whether there should be another legislation that gives special protection for kids aged 13 to 17 years old.

The provisions of the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) contain special requirements for websites that allow access to children under 13 years old. Before they can collect, use or disclose kids’ personal information, these websites must get a parent’s permission. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) proposes to amend the meaning of personal information. Its new version would already include geolocation data, and identifiers such as cookies.

There are two sides of opinion regarding the extension of coverage of teenagers in COPPA.
Those who push for more privacy say that Congress should take into account the need to have special protection for teens to expand its privacy legislation. A more radical legislation was proposed by representatives from at least two states. They want websites to be barred from tracking children while they are online.

Facebook has made a name as one of the giants in social networking. It continuously makes changes in its features that are aimed at improving the users’ experience. Without neglecting to consider the privacy of its users, Facebook does not stop thinking of new ways to satisfy millions of people. There have been different criticisms, but the company always tries to resolve every issue promptly. A lot about building a large group of online friends has received disapproval from some people. However, it did not stop Facebook from venturing into new user experiences, and it is succeeding.

This time, users are given the chance to create their own “vanity” or customized URLs. What makes this feature more accessible is that users can register their URLs in an easier way. Before, Facebook required at least 25 “Likes” on the newly created page before it could be registered. Supposedly, this was to make sure that the page is “liked” to guarantee its acceptability in terms of appearance.

The vanity URL is an option offered to users who want to create a new page, but do not want a unique URL which may be difficult to remember. This used to be a concern to those who wanted to promote a cause or a brand. With this better option, the user can select a shorter and easier to remember unique username.

Here is another case of an employee suing his former employer for violation of privacy. A state training manager who was fired for timesheet violations filed a lawsuit against the Labor Department through the New York Civil Liberties Union. The former employee alleged that he was tracked with a GPS device that was secretly placed in his personal car. The NYCLU lawyer described such use of GPS technology as an “unprecedented degree of government intrusion”.

The employee tells a story different from that of his employer as to why he was fired from his post. He said that he was punished because he was the one who stood up for employees who were pressured into attending a prayer breakfast sponsored by a Governor. The Department of Labor claimed that the real cause was his improper filing of timesheets, and not the one he alleged.

What about the GPS tracking device? The device was placed in his car to put him under surveillance so as to keep a record of how he actually did his job. There were allegations that he claimed payment for hours when he was not doing his work. However, the times of surveillance was only supposed to cover his official working hours. What happened was that the monitoring continued during evenings and weekends. There was even a time when the employee’s vacation with his family was monitored.

In addition to the issue of GPS tracking and anonymity in public places, there is the other issue of online surveillance. People resisted the use of GPS technology for tracking people unless there is a proper warrant. It is possible to lose one’s privacy when the Court decides to allow GPS tracking by the police. This means that no one will be exempt from being watched when they are in public places.

People in the virtual space, especially in social networks, might also lose their anonymity. Using the so-called online surveillance technology, it is easy to monitor “movements” of people in the virtual space. One such kind of technology is Facebook’s face-recognition, which it announced last June. In simple terms, this technology allows the scanning of all photos found in its database and attaching the names of users to them. Then all images of each user are automatically tagged and matched with other images that are found anywhere else. Granting that the user used his or her real name as required, he or she can be indentified and located.

The technology described in the prior paragraph can be used by the police to identify anonymous criminals. All they need to do is post the image of the anonymous suspect on Facebook. With the tagging system, he or she can be instantly identified. However, Facebook received a public protest against the use of this “automatic tagging” technology. The company ended up giving users the alternative to opt out of this system instead of “forcing” it on all of them.