Privacy on the Internet

The outcry over aspects of Google's proposed new "Gmail" has brought an old argument back to life. Privacy advocates are opposed not only to the ads that Google proposes to place in personal emails, but also by the fact that these same personal emails will not be deleted -- even if the user attempts to delete them.

What does this mean, in practice? It means that: A) Your personal emails will be available to someone, somewhere, for an essentially indefinite time period; and B) Your personal emails will be put through a spider and altered by the addition of ad content, based on your personal communications. In practice, it means that if you're writing something confidential, self-incriminating, or inflammatory, you'd be well-advised to pick a different email service (or of course reconsider writing it in the first place). It also means that you could be sending emails back and forth with a friend, perhaps discussing a visit to the dentist, and suddenly find a paid advertisement for toothpaste showing up in them. If you'd find this unnerving, annoying, intrusive, or all of the above, this is not the email service for you. So in the small picture, people can avoid potential privacy issues by simply not using Gmail, or corresponding with those who do.

What is the bigger picture? The very strengths of the internet become weaknesses where privacy is concerned. You can easily share information with literally millions of people with just a mouse-click, but the down side is, that information is now available to any number of people. Those other people might copy it, steal it, or use it for malicious purposes, and most of the time, you wouldn't even know.

Free and open email communication, sending information across the world in seconds, also carries risks. Spam permeates email inboxes everywhere, pounding recipients with useless and unwanted information. All of it carries the risk of a hidden virus bomb which will detonate on your computer, doing everything from sending out spam to your friends, to hijacking your browser and implanting spyware on your computer. Some of that spyware can be put to malicious use, stealing passwords, PIN numbers, and personal information, leaving you at serious risk of being stolen from or defrauded.

Privacy issues are dominating many discussion forums and articles, both in the internet industry and in the general public. Identity theft is becoming a serious problem, along with the other less dangerous but still annoying hassles.

But is privacy really even possible on the internet? Is there really any way to patch all the holes, and protect yourself from every potential risk? The unfortunate truth is, probably not. An intelligent and malicious hacker will almost always manage to penetrate your defenses, particularly if you are a private citizen, whose computer is not protected behind the massive firewalls of the major corporations (which are by no means impenetrable). Almost everyone has been on the receiving end of virus attacks, and many people have found spyware on their computers when a more-knowledgeable friend suggested they run a check. Most of the spyware is neither harmful nor malicious, but it sill comes as a shock if you don't know it's there. I am an internet professional, and my home computer is guarded by several layers of firewalls and protection software -- yet last night, with one careless mouse-click, I got my browser hijacked, my anti-virus shut down, and bought myself almost 3 hours of computer cleansing before I got rid of it all.

In an imperfect world, the solution is to protect yourself as best you can by being proactive. Just as those who don't want their emails saved indefinitely should probably not use Gmail, there are other things you can do to protect yourself:

1. Don't have your passwords and PIN numbers saved on your computer, no matter how well-protected you think it is. It's better to take the time to type in the password every time than to have some stranger with bad intentions getting into your bank account (besides, that way you won't forget it!).

2. Don't use the same password for everything either, and don't write them down where they can be found.

3. Make sure any site you are going to purchase from has clearly posted privacy policies, and read them. Otherwise, you might find yourself on an unwanted mailing list faster than you can hit "send".

4. Don't save personal financial information or credit card information on your computer.

5. Never, ever, place orders through unsecured websites, from companies that you have not heard of.

6. If you have any reason to believe that your computer has been compromised, immediately change any and all passwords, both locally, and online. Do it IMMEDIATELY. Don't wait. And keep a close eye on all of your credit cards and bank accounts for the next few weeks.

7. If you're a business, make your site as secure as possible, including using secure servers and certificates, and encryption. If you are made aware of a violation, take immediate and aggressive action to combat it.

Protect yourself and your customers as best you can, but be aware that at some point, you too will probably be a victim of some sort of internet privacy violation.