On 9.2, we talked about Rosen's article, "The End of Forgetting," and being aware of how to track and manage our digital footprint. This is an important "macro" issue for individuals, as well as our clients.
On Tuesday (9.7), we will talk about the amount of information that companies gather by tracking our online activities. You will receive further instructions in class, but as you read the articles that are linked below, I want you to think about both the practical and ethical implications associated with online tracking.
While there are many recent articles about online tracking, a good place for you to start is a recent investigative series by The Wall Street Journal. Link here: http://online.wsj.com/public/page/what-they-know-digital-privacy.html
You should read "The Web's new gold mine: Your secrets" and "Personal details exposed via biggest U.S. websites." You should also identify a third article (it can be part of the WSJ series or from another newspaper).
Be prepared to discuss what you learned and how this information can be used to assist your future clients. Also give some thought to the ethical implications of online tracking.
P.S. If this area interests you, WSJ has a "What they know" twitter feed. Link here: http://twitter.com/WhatTheyKnow
P.P.S. Here's an interesting article WSJ ran today on how Google is responding to some of the negative reaction to its tracking policies: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/09/03/google-helps-users-learn-what-it-knows-about-them/ Have they gone far enough?
hey what was the name of the site that had the video that was used with google chrome and it had the pop ups and what not?
ReplyDeletehttp://thewildernessdowntown.com/
ReplyDeleteIt will work using Firefox or Safari, but it does seem to work a bit better using Google Chrome.
-John Wirtz
These were really scary! After I read these articles, and we discussed this in class I wanted to go home and hide EVERYTHING! It's weird that someone may be able to see all my personal information, and where I live, or go to school. The participation 9.2 (that we did in class) was interesting after knowing about how our information is tracked. For example, we talked about digital bankruptcy and how we would be able to erase our internet past. Then on Thursday we watched the "Google" man tell us that it was only a joke. So I really doubt that will ever happen, but who knows. I think being able to erase our past would definitely have its pros and cons. Of course if we had a bad past, it would be nice to be able and start over. Yet, if someone's past was really bad (crime), it would be better to keep that information so others would be safe and feel at ease. Someone would really have to sit down and measure out the pros and cons of "digital bankruptcy" to determine whether or not it would be wise.
ReplyDeleteI had no clue that there was that much tracking online these days and to be honest it is very frightening. Im glad you had the class read these articles and do the participation assignment in class. This is something that every student should be aware of because nearly 70% of companies do online checks before hiring someone. I see this becoming a huge problem that will be a great topic of debate.
ReplyDeleteEven though we have already talked quite a bit about online tracking in class, reading this articles just reminded me of how creepy it really is. I think its good of Google to help users understand how they aquire and use our information, but that does not make it any less scary. It makes me really uncomfortable to know that information about me is being stored places and I have no idea what it says. There is no telling how much creepier tracking is going to get.
ReplyDelete