The Rise of the Internet and Its Potential Downfall

Explaining how the internet works would be a whole topic in itself. As there are multiple layers of how the internet connects devices together and within those layers, there are even more layers in how the transfer of data is processed and so on. That’s why most things are created with a layer of abstraction where the general user shouldn’t be concerned with how something works but rather if it works. For example, a typical user shouldn’t care for how the circuitry in a remote works to tell the TV to change channels. All they need to know is which button to press to change the channel. The same things applies to the internet and its applications but when it comes to certain things related to the user and the information the users give up, it’s important to know what that data is being used for.

The internet’s rise could be attributed to the convenience it offers for its users. Communicating with others has evolved from writing letters to waiting weeks for a reply to a mere few seconds. Listening to music or watching movies became simpler, having an entire library streamed straight to your device. But, with the internet’s rise, there is the concern for the users. All the advantages of the internet involve one thing – data. The handling of user data is a major concern on everyone’s mind. “Why do companies need my data?” and “What are the companies doing with my data?” And when it comes to making the user’s data public, professor Arvind Narayanan goes into detail in his blog post, “Is Making Public Data “More Public” a Privacy Violation?” He states that when companies try to obtain user data and make it “more public”, it destroys the trust in users and when companies try “applying the “it’s already public” rule”, it doesn’t plan out as they’d hope. Birth records were made publicly available via the California Birth Index, although there is a tedious process to obtain these records. MySpace had tried to sell user data in bulk and justifying their actions since “the data is already public” and they simply did the work of collecting it. Infochimps scraped graphs and data from Twitter back in 2008 which was then forced down by Twitter.

Towards the ending of Narayanan’s blog post, he claims there should be no acceptable way to use public data on the web. Although I agree that certain things done with user data is terribly unacceptable, there are certain handlings of public data that should be fine. For example, using public data to predict future events should be acceptable or utilizing medical data to help research and develop cures for diseases, albeit in a way that respects the user’s privacy. For example, a user’s social security number wouldn’t obviously be used to help find the cure of a rare disease. The selling of user data I believe should be completely up to the user themselves. If the user wants to sell off their email information for adverts, that should be completely up to the user. Or for some reason there should be a middle ground between the companies and users, the profits from selling data can be split amongst the two parties, in favor of the user.

All in all, the internet is a great place and has improved itself and the world in many ways. But the internet could also lead to the downfall of the world with so many controversial debates on the use of the internet and its ethics and morals.

Tony Lu