Current Events Presentation: "What The Internet Knows About You"

So for my current event presentation in class, I chose to present an article called "What The Internet Knows About You," by Jessica Rose Bennett, which was about the Newsweek reporter herself, who asked a company named "Reputation Defender" to compile any background information they could find about her on the Internet. The company had nothing to go by except for her name and email address. Within 30 minutes, they were able to find her social security number, address, body type, and health status. They then published a whole report about her that ranked her education, body type, attractiveness, sexuality, health, drug and alcohol use, and financial status. They also compiled numerous photos of her. One interesting finding that really shocked me was the fact that they rated this reporter as a heavy drug user because they'd found pictures and references of marijuana that were associated with her name even though it was actually because she'd previously done a report on medical marijuana. The fact that this company was able to find all of this information, which should be kept confidential and private, within a half an hour is very scary. Credit card companies and data collectors sell this information to advertisers everyday and it's perfectly legal. When you use social networking sites such as Facebook, your information is often given to third parties. All of this information could affect a person's insurance premiums or chances of getting a loan or a job. The article later mentions that there was a situation in Canada where this women was given sick leave for her depression but after her insurance company found her Facebook profile with a picture of her smiling, they revoked her insurance benefits. I believe that this practice is totally unfair and unethical, as did the rest of the class. Various companies should not be allowed to use information they find about someone on the Internet to make assumptions or accusations that may not even be true. While most companies explain their terms and conditions, such as their rights to sell one's information, before a person signs up to use their services, it is often hidden in fine print that people don't understand or bother to read. While hearing about such practices does make people a little weary about what information they put on the Internet, most of our generation is so desensitized to these unethical practices. We have some how just learned to accept that this is the way things are.

The following is a link to the article: http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/22/forget-privacy-what-the-internet-knows-about-you.html