INTERNET PRIVACY TODAY -- WHAT ARE THE ISSUES?
The Net was not designed for privacy. When you surf the web, send email, chat,
and post to newsgroups, your computer leaves behind a digital footprint called an IP address.
Footprints in the real world fade with time, but in Cyberspace, your IP address is recorded permanently.
Even if you provide false information to website registration forms, your personal information can easily
be tracked down. Remember, the Internet was designed for computers to exchange information, not hide it.
Your life is an open book. Internet traffic, such as email messages, are just like postcards.
Anyone who intercepts them discover who you're talking to and what you're saying.
Live chat and password-protected websites also give the illusion of anonymity,
but your IP address is still recorded alongside your chat transcripts and stored in company database logs.
You can never take back what you say online.
You are the target (market). Marketers want to know as much as they can about you,
and the Internet is the perfect tool for compiling detailed personal profiles.
Increasingly sophisticated profiling technology has emerged to harvest
as much personal information as possible from the Net. Your name, address, employer,
salary, marital status, religion, hobbies… it's all collected and placed in a growing profile
with your name on it. If you think this sounds far-fetched, think again.
This kind of surveillance is happening now.
So what if they eavesdrop? You're a good person with nothing to hide,
so why should you care if your personal information and communications are vulnerable?
Lots of reasons. Beyond the annoyance of being bombarded with marketing messages,
your profile can be used to discriminate, harass,
or even perpetrate crimes against you and your family.
Who can you trust? Many companies take advantage of consumer concern for
online privacy by providing so-called "identity and relationship management" services.
They ask you to fill out forms with ALL your personal information, and then hand out pieces of it
to partner merchant sites. Merchant sites themselves post privacy policies they can't or won't enforce
when push comes to shove. And others still leave personal information in poorly secured databases,
vulnerable to hacker attacks. This is the opposite of privacy.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
We recognize that you are concerned about online privacy. To address these concerns,
we have affiliated with Zero-Knowledge Systems, makers of Freedom -- an Internet privacy software solution
that provides complete control over your personal information.
Freedom is easy-to-use software that works alongside your existing Internet applications to ensure
that all your Internet traffic remains completely private. No one can learn your personal information
unless you want them to - not even Zero-Knowledge.
Get Freedom and get:
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