Do Not Track Me Online！

Nowadays, more and more people start to realize the importance of the online privacy, but it is still a problem which we cannot solve completely even until today. That is because everybody knows the fact that we leave our personal information, we leave our footprint somewhere on the Internet inevitably as long as

we do something online.

I ever read a story that a worker used his corporation’s computer to search some information about cancer for his neighbor. However, later on, all of his colleagues knew it and started to talk about it behind him. From then on, everybody in the office treats him differently. He was very uncomfortable when he felt that everyone had a very strange sight on him, or afraid, or sympathy…

That is terrible! Can you imagine that situation? Everyone treats you differently and even you can feel the difference from their eyes? Certainly we can see the result, which he finally cannot bear it and give up his job there. But you know? It is not his fault! If he indeed did the search for himself, what fault he has? Can we say he did anything wrong or it is his fault only because he got cancer?

From the story above, we can see how terrible it is if we totally have no privacy in the public places.

What good news! Many companies and also the government are searching for ways to solve this problem. Just as I mentioned in last blog before, Facebook got collaboration with WOT to improve the security system, which may give its users more trust.

In America, the first “do not track” legislation was introduced in Congress on February 2011, raising the possibility that Web users will be able to prevent advertisers from recording their online behavior for marketing purposes, similar to the Do Not Call Registry created in 2003. The bill, called the “Do Not Track Me Online Act of 2011,” would give the Federal Trade Commission the right to create regulations that would force online marketers to respect the wishes of users who did not want to be tracked. The bill, with another similar bill together, send a clear message — privacy over profit. Consumers have a right to determine what if any of their information is shared with big corporations.

Lawmakers offer new proposals allowing consumers to stop online tracking. The push for new laws to protect online privacy, particularly the ability of websites to track people’s movements across the Internet, gained momentum on May, 2011, as key lawmakers said they would propose new legislation. Following the “Do Not Track Me Online Act of 2011,” this bill would create a “Digital Marketing Bill of Rights for Teens” to limit the collection of personal information, including geo-location data from mobile devices.

Do Not Track Me Online!

Just say it loud and passionately. We can see now people are really doing what they can to prevent online people’s personal information from being used on purpose when not authorized to do so. For instance, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox both announce tools to block Web tracking by advertisers. Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 also let users list sites they do and don’t want tracking them.

From all of this, we can see the promiseful prospects of online privacy protections in the near future.