Privacy

"The worst thing about being famous is the invasion of your privacy." 

            -Justin Timberlake

But what if you aren't famous? In 2008, 10 million people were a victim of Identity Theft. And I definitely don't think 100% of them were famous. In fact, the reason ID theft occurs sometimes is because people put too much out there on the Internet. I believe privacy on the Internet is essential. I think it is okay to affiliate yourself with social sites, but there is a line you should not cross. For example, Facebook now offers a place option. You can enter where you are at that very second, and anyone with an iPhone can easily see on a map where you are, and how to get there. It is just too dangerous in today's society to put this type of information out there!

Nobody should put his or her phone number or address especially. ID theft isn't the only thing that can result from this. For example, Israel Hyman was robbed after posting about his vacation on the social website Twitter. His tweets about being away from home may have instigated the robbery. It is not necessarily because of that. You could get robbed either way, but this is just not helpful to personal privacy by posting these types of things on the Internet. I strongly believe you should never put information on the Internet that you don't want anyone to find out, especially home address, workplace, or phone number.

I personally have witnessed people putting this information out there, and I don't even know them, but I could easily know all of their information. To be honest, I could really care less about where they live or what they do, but some people might, which is risky. Privacy is very important to people. American citizens do have the right to privacy, but chose not to protect their information. The Internet can be very dangerous, and it can be very beneficial as well. I just think that people need to learn how to balance it out. Some companies are trying to spread the word about Internet safety. For example, Att created this game to help promote Internet safety. http://www.att.com/Common/images/safety/game.html. Disney also did something similar, but without the game interface on their website, which is http://disney.go.com/corporate/privacy/safety.html.

In conclusion, I believe that people need to be safer on the Internet, especially when sites like Facebook have privacy settings, so use them!! The Internet can really be helpful in life, but you just need to know how to use it without causing risk for yourself! Be safe on the Internet, or anywhere for that matter! Thanks for reading :)!