Googling Your Security: Is Your Web Browsing Really Safe? Google is often thought of as just a search engine: a convenient tool that can be accessed at any time to search for information. The rise of the information era has dramatically shifted how we conduct our business and personal matters. Google’s success is a product of the growth of the World Wide Web and the Internet. The web was created in 1989 and has had unprecedented growth ever since. In 1993, there were approximately 130 websites and in 1997 there were 650,000. Today, there are over 1 million websites and 15 to 30 billion web pages (Conti 3). In the United States, about 97 million adults use the Internet at least once per day, and 38% use a search engine to find information (Foley 1). Out of popularity, Google has become the destination of choice for over 500 million unique visitors. The idea that search engines such as Google are collecting information is often not a primary thought that crosses an individual’s mind when they are browsing the web. The rise of “enhanced security” options when using Google (or when trying to avoid Google) may provide reassurance that the data is protected, but the reality is that the thin veneer of anonymity on the web is insufficient to protect individuals from revealing their identity. The value of our online data is unprecedented; as individuals browse the web, they leave behind a digital footprint. Google gathers information through several primary vectors: information
For one thing, Google, like the railroad in its time, is an important part of how people interact with each other today. People use Google to digitally meet with others, communicate, and even sell things. Multiple people are affected by Google each day. 87% of people have claimed to use the internet in 2016 (Anderson). To add onto this the number of people who don’t use the internet has been decreasing since 2000.
Sergey Brin noted, “Some say Google is God. Others say Google is Satan. But if they think Google is too powerful, remember that with search engines, unlike other companies, all it takes is a single click to go to another search engine.” Nicholas Carr’s essay challenges this assertion. Nicholas Carr believes even though there are multiple search engines, “the faster we surf across the Web-the more links we click and pages we view-the more opportunities Google and other companies gain to collect information about us and to feed us advertisements.” This topic elicits such strong responses because technology is a part of our everyday lives. Technology is only becoming more advanced and will continue to be a source of debate for all who use it.
In today’s world, Privacy and Security comes hand in hand with internet. Technology allows us free speech and freedom of information over the internet, by imposing strict laws and policies regulating the privacy and security of our information. According to Richard Clarke, free expression over the internet and its privacy are two sides of the same coin (Privacy and security(n.d.)). Writing blogs, uploading posts, comments or pictures on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, networking or sharing links on Linkedin are all considered as our free expression and its security is our right. Individual right to
He then uses ethos by discussing his role as “an operator of a small government-transparency Web site,” who does good for his site’s visitors when there is enough money to do so. Harper is a founding member of the Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee for the Department of Homeland Security and an expert in the legal complications surrounding new technologies. He offers us this role to persuade readers to perceive him as a trustworthy person. Harper begins his essay by stating that if you surf the Web, you are part of the information economy. His essay, which was published in the Wall Street Journal, argues that the business models and opportunities used to customize advertising justifies the use of data mining. Because of advertising and the use of cookies, which are files used to track users in order to customize their experiences, companies such as Google are able to spend millions of dollars on free
Time Newspaper has learnt that it's not surprising that Internet companies have electronic dossiers that contain personal information for individuals who subscribe to the websites. Generally, these companies have obtained the information from people based on individual's visit to the website, sent and received emails, tagged photos, and searches people carry out. However, the extent of personal information known by these Internet companies has remained largely unknown as well who they provide and/or sell this information to. However, Internet companies continue to gather lots of personal information from different people who focus on carrying out online activities on a daily basis. Currently, it's estimated that these firms gather personal information from nearly 500 million users but are hesitant to provide this information to the other firms or individuals. As their unwillingness to share has attracted significant congressional inquiry, things could finally change in California following the introduction of a bill that may force companies to disclose the kind of personal information they have gathered and how this information is being used.
Google is the most popular search engine in the entire world. Google made the biggest impact on the internet. All the question to the answer is one click away, without doing tons of research and hard work. Despite it makes our lives easy, in the article “Is Google making us stupid” by Nicholas Carr, Carr pointed out many issues caused by using google.
Today, society is affected by the many advances in technology. These advances affect almost every person in the world. One of the prevalent advances in technology was the invention and mass use of the Internet. Today more than ever, people around the world use the Internet to support their personal and business tasks on a daily basis. The Internet is a portal into vast amounts of information concerning almost every aspect of life including education, business, politics, entertainment, social networking, and world security. (idebate.com) Although the Internet has become a key resource in developing the world, the mass use of Internet has highlighted a major problem, privacy and the protection of individual, corporate, and even government
Many users are subject of Security and Privacy on the Internet issue. The term "information" now is more used when defining a special product or article of trade which could be bought, sold, exchanged, etc. Often the price of information is higher many times than the cost of the very computers and technologies where it is functioning. Naturally it raises the need of protecting information from unauthorized access, theft, destruction, and other crimes. However, many users do not realize that they risk their security and privacy online.
Throughout time, privacy and security have been two heavily debated topics. There has always been a struggle to find middle ground between a private environment and a secure environment, but the dawn of technology and the Internet has made this struggle even more difficult. The Internet has drastically decreased the expectation of privacy of any and all individuals that have ever used it. Technology in general can pose a threat to an individual’s physical and virtual security. The Internet has also brought forth a sense of anonymity to those looking to conceal their true identities, some of which plan to commit horrific crimes. Privacy and security go hand in hand, however security is by far the most important.
The concern about privacy on the Internet is increasingly becoming an issue of international dispute. ?Citizens are becoming concerned that the most intimate details of their daily lives are being monitored, searched and recorded.? (www.britannica.com) 81% of Net users are concerned about threats to their privacy while online. The greatest threat to privacy comes from the construction of e-commerce alone, and not from state agents. E-commerce is structured on the copy and trade of intimate personal information and therefore, a threat to privacy on the Internet.
Technology is great in so many ways. It has provided us with more communication access, access to knowledge at our finger tips, and so much more. Technology has overall made life easier, but maybe too easy, and has made things a lot less private. This results in us having to be extra careful with security on the internet. Internet security is important to protect our privacy, protect us from fraud, and from viruses that could destroy a piece of our technology. Internet privacy and security may be different but share a responsibility, but it is up to us to take personal responsibility to protect ourselves on the internet. We should pick unique, carful passwords, and never share this sensitive information, and encrypt our data when online.
Google is the most popular search engine that the world uses on an everyday basis. Sergey Brin and Larry Page created Google in 1998. What started out to be a small search engine and ranking system are now the worlds most profitable Internet companies of our time. Google has created many products today that have changed the world of technology, products such as Google+, YouTube, Android, Motorola Mobility, the Nexus 7 tablet computer, Google Wallet, and Google Glass (p.470). Google is qualified as one of the best companies to work for (p.464.) The issue we are facing today is the privacy policy
Privacy concerns on the web have become an undesirable consequence that people face with cyber technology. The ability of computers to gather and store unlimited amount of information from the internet raises privacy issues concerning an individual’s informational privacy. A person’s right to informational privacy is the ability to control the flow of their personal information, including the transfer and exchange of that information. An invasion of informational privacy denies people the right to control who accesses their personal information. Many internet users are unaware that they are more likely to compromise their privacy when using the internet services such as search engines and social networking sites. The internet provides access to an incredible amount of information from all over the world. Some internet users use the internet exclusively as a source of information while other internet users use the internet to create and disseminate information for others to use. However, the vast amount of information floating on the internet would not
Google is a company that was conceptualized in a dorm room by two Stanford University college students in 1996 (Arnold, 2005, p. 1) and has morphed into one of the greatest technological powerhouses in operation today. What began as merely a means to analyze and categorize Web sites according to their relevance has developed into a vast library of widely utilized resources, including email servicing, calendaring, instant messaging and photo editing, just to reference a few. Recent statistics collected by SearchEngineWatch.com reflects that of the 10 billion searches performed within the United States during the month of February, 2008, an impressive 5.9 billion of them were executed by Google (Burns, 2008). Rated as Fortune Magazine’s
Beginning in the 1990’s, the world has witnessed a tremendous growth in the World Wide Web. This boom has resulted in an unstoppable technological revolution that continuous to change our lives. The 20th century has blossomed with the rapid expansion of the Internet. Yet, this expansion has brought with it both, opportunities and challenges; particularly, in the “dot- com” industry. As a result, companies of all kinds employed the Internet as a tool to expand their business reach. For others, the Internet was a new “gold mine” that gave birth to a multi-billion dollar business, named “Google”.