This paper examines the growing threat to individual privacy posed by websites and social networks that collect, analyze, and sell personal data without meaningful user consent. Using Facebook as a primary example, the paper argues that advertising-driven business models built on unauthorized data collection undermine user dignity, enable identity theft, and set dangerous legal precedents for the Internet at large. The paper further warns that unless major platforms voluntarily reform these practices, government regulation will become inevitable — ultimately eroding the openness and innovation that make the Internet valuable. Drawing on scholarship in information privacy, CRM systems, and online policy, the paper calls for ethical restraint in how personal information is handled online.
The greatest challenge to the legal foundations of the Internet is the continual assault on individual privacy, brought about by increasingly loose standards governing how personal data is used, stored, and tracked online. Foremost among these threats is the relentless use of personal data harvested from websites, social networks, and other online forums where users are coaxed into surrendering as much information as possible in support of advertising-driven business models (Christiansen, 2011). This represents one of the greatest possible threats to individual liberties, as it strikes at the core of a person's dignity online and their ability to trust the websites they actively engage with and rely on for work or their social lives (Dhillon & Moores, 2001). Facebook is among the most egregious offenders, with a long history of hypocrisy in its approach to personal information privacy while simultaneously building a business model worth many billions of dollars (Chai, Bagchi-Sen, Morrell, Rao, & Upadhyaya, 2009).
Despite the many stated policies and programs that the world's best-known Internet sites maintain for protecting consumer information, personal data is in reality often sold to marketers or used as the basis for creating proprietary marketing services (Dinev & Hart, 2006). This practice poses a serious threat to the legal foundations of the Internet because it establishes a precedent that websites can collect and sell personal information with impunity. It also opens the door to capturing ever-greater volumes of information online, all of which can be aggregated into a consolidated profile of individual consumer activity (Rutter, 2007).
While Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are commonly used to track information that customers voluntarily provide, tracking website visitors' activity without their knowledge — and then selling it — will ultimately compromise their identities as well (Earp, Anton, Aiman-Smith, & Stufflebeam, 2005). The very real threat of identity theft has long been associated with these practices and continues to grow (Dinev & Hart, 2006).
Another critical factor in understanding why the unauthorized collection, analysis, and sale of personal information online threatens the foundations of the Internet is the role that governments may ultimately be forced to play in resolving these issues (Chai et al., 2009). With good intentions, the United States and other governments will inevitably become involved in regulating the Internet and its many websites, creating a restrictive environment for both business and personal users (Earp et al., 2005). Unless major websites cease capturing and selling personal data — thereby cultivating fertile ground for online identity theft — the Internet will eventually become heavily regulated, and the innovation and freedom it currently affords will quickly disappear.
If Facebook and other sites recognized that continually collecting people's sensitive information without consent will eventually subject their platforms — and possibly the Internet itself — to heavy regulation, they might reconsider their practices. Ironically, the very freedom these websites have been designed to exploit will disappear unless these businesses stop trading in personal information unethically, endangering free online markets in the process.
Chai, S., Bagchi-Sen, S., Morrell, C., Rao, H. R., & Upadhyaya, S. J. (2009). Internet and online information privacy: An exploratory study of preteens and early teens. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 52(2), 167.
Christiansen, L. (2011). Personal privacy and internet marketing: An impossible conflict or a marriage made in heaven? Business Horizons, 54(6), 509.
Dhillon, G. S., & Moores, T. T. (2001). Internet privacy: Interpreting key issues. Information Resources Management Journal, 14(4), 33–37.
Dinev, T., & Hart, P. (2006). Internet privacy concerns and social awareness as determinants of intention to transact. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 10(2), 7–29.
Earp, J. B., Anton, A. I., Aiman-Smith, L., & Stufflebeam, W. H. (2005). Examining internet privacy policies within the context of user privacy values. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 52(2), 227–237.
Rutter, J. (2007). Understanding the decision to click on the internet privacy policy [Doctoral dissertation]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.
You’re 97% through this paper. Sign up to read the full paper.
Sign Up Now — Instant Access Already a member? Log inAlways verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.