Online privacy has a number of definitions. The easiest way to describe it is the privacy and security level of personal facts published via the Internet (Janssen, n.d.). Over the last couple of years, privacy has proven to be a major concern for all Internet users. It is becoming more and more complicated to expect a practical probability of privacy online. I do not believe that Americans have any type of online privacy, Americans have taken advantage of the privacy we once had. With the Internet and new technologies developing, regaining our privacy privileges may be possible in the future. However, before that can even become a possibility, online privacy and websites privacy policies must be redeveloped.
Older American generations tend to point the finger at millennials for the lack of online privacy we have today. Millennial’s are the digital natives of the active online world. They have grown up in a society where texting and using social media is the basic way to communicate with one another. Due to the way this generation was brought up, technology intelligent, they do not care about privacy (Henley, 2013).
According to the Pew Internet and the American Life Project, 91 percent of 12-to-17-year-olds it surveyed upload photos of themselves, 24 percent post videos, while another 91 percent are comfortable posting their real name; 60 percent post their relationship status; 82 percent post their actual birthdays; 71 percent give the name of the town they live in along with the school they attend; 53 percent give their email address and lastly 20 percent post their cell phone numbers on the internet (Henley, 2013).
Younger generations do not think twice about what they are posting online, more specifically, they are not thinking about what their online actions may cause for their futures. Millennial’s must start taking into consideration that whatever they post online could potentially be seen by future employers. Once they get older and star applying for jobs, employers could potentially pull up any old or new post, tweet or photo that the person interviewing for the job posted. If the employer found something unsettling to them, this would cause the millennial to lose the job. The Phew report found that only 9 percent of teens were “very” concerned about third parties like companies or government agencies accessing their personal information (Henley, 2013). Even when a person knowingly gives out personal information via the Internet that does not necessarily mean that they are entirely comfortable with doing so. Around 81 percent of Americans say they still feel insecure using social media to share personal information about themselves, even when they are giving the information to people or organizations they trust (Johnson, 2014).
Millennials have the slightest idea of how much information social networking sites are collecting from them. As a whole, they tend to be untroubled about the idea because in their eyes it comes as a trade-off for free use of the service (Henley, 2013). What these kids do not realize is that most privacy offensives are silent and invisible. Less then half of people know and care about these attacks, which help prove that millennials are not the prime cause for the downfall of American’s online privacy.
A major dilemma with Internet privacies is that many consumers assume that they have control over the information they reveal. However, this is not the case. The things people say and do online generate large quantity of personal information that present those on the web insight into our personalities and interest.
According to, senior researcher, Mary Madden’s Pew Research Center privacy survey stated that 91 percent of Americans feel they have lost control over how their personal information is composed online (Johnson, 2014). Trackers can obtain and share our special information through data spots when a user is activating their computer, cell phone or tablet (Riofrio, 2013).
Users are