Breach of Internet Privacy

Over the last decade, internet privacy has being a hot topic. And also in many years to come, privacy online will continue to be a hot topic. The recent revelation by former CIA analyst Edward Snowden on how Government with the help of NSA is constantly snooping on our activities will add more controversy to this topic.

More of the confusion surrounding the issue of online privacy mostly arises from the fact that there is no general understanding as regards to what is private and what is not.
The Case of Google Street view
In 2007, Google added a new feature to its popular Google map product. The Street View works by posting real life images taken by Google satellite cameras at particular intervals and associating it with the current location on Google map. Privacy issues came up as these cameras caught pictures of men leaving strippers club, there are also pictures of men picking up prostitutes etc. Google was fined for these privacy breaches in some countries. At the end, Google has to blur these type of images in its Street view application to avoid further lawsuits.



There is also the issue of "who owns personal data stored by apps".
Facebook Apps
Even with all the privacy settings available in facebook app, facebook has being selling personal data and information of its app users to online advertisers and marketers. In October 2010, facebook admitted to this crime after investigations uncovered users privacy breach and facebook selling tens of millions of personal data of its users to advertisers such as click ads.

Securing private users data such as medical records, credit cards its quite a tough task. There have being many cases of data breach on servers of companies providing medical services.
HealthNet Data breach
In March 2011, the servers of US based health insurance compant HealthNet was breached. Medical records, account details, credit card numbers of users where breached and these information exposed online.

Most of these privacy breaches discussed above, the users will bear more of these consequences. Though the provider company may stand to loose customers as a result of poor security and privacy policy, but most times, the financial, privacy loss is more on the users.