What is Digital Privacy / Anonymity?

According to an article titled, "Digital Privacy," on http://www/youthandmedia.org, the term digital privacy cannot really be defined because it is on-going and relative. What does this mean? A person could define digital privacy alot differently in the Colonial times than say a person did today. Who exactly does digital privacy protect? The article stated that privacy protection can be broken down to include protection from: Government, (The U.S. Privacy law protects individuals from infringement by the government,) Service Provides like Google and Facebook, privacy from schools and teachers, and privacy from employers, health insurers, neighbors, etc.

Digital Privacy also protects people from having their pictures taken without their permission and being circulated on the Internet. In this article, it talked about how in 2006, there was an incident that took place on a bus between two men and the incident was recorded by a fellow passenger. In May 2006, this video became the most popular video. Incidents like this happen all of the time but what happened to digital privacy? I thought that we were supposed to be protected from these types of incidents as individuals.

Think about this! How much information is out there on the Internet about yourself? There are websites like Topix, where people start forums about you and its anonymous. What does this mean? When someone posts items on Topix about an individual that person has no idea who it was because you don't have to include a name. On Facebook, you are supposed to be protected from hackers because profiles are supposed to be private, but what about the people who get past this and still get all of your information?

Reflection: I have never really thought about this issue until it was assigned to me. After I started doing the research it all started to add up to me and most of the questions that have been crossing my mind were getting answered. For example, does anybody really know everything that there is out on the Internet about themselves? This is a scary issue. I feel like as individuals we should be protected more than what we are and this issue would seize. I found all of my information for this blog on, http://youthandmedia.org/wiki/Category:Digital_Privacy.