The Value of Digital Privacy in an Information Technology Age Research Paper - 1

The Value of Digital Privacy in an Information Technology Age - Research Paper Example Netizens, a term coined for active users of the Internet (Netizen), are complaining about how websites make private information such as their names, phone numbers, addresses, etc. available to the public. The issue of privacy over the Internet has become very serious that lawmakers have been forced to create regulations to safeguard users (Lyons, 2012) against websites that provide access to an individual’s private information. Search Engines for Citizens’ Private Data Intelius.com is a search engine that specializes on people searches. On the website, a researcher can choose to look up an individual through several ways. There are links to search via email, social networking sites, property records and the basic people search which yields the person’s relatives, age and the various cities and states in the USA the individual may have resided in. Getting a report would require a fee. Supposedly, the report would contain â€Å"some or all† of the data such as the person’s full name, age and date of birth, phone numbers, aliases, relatives, email address(es), property records, marriage & divorce, lawsuits, criminal records, and so on. For people search and background check services, Intelius supposedly provides a researcher his money’s worth because of the accuracy of its reports. ... These have corresponding fees. Prices are from $2.45, $19.95 and $39.95. The most expensive report includes a State Criminal Search, Properties, Enhanced Relatives, Associates Plus and Marriages/Divorces. As with Intelius, the number of items listed in each report is not guaranteed. Zaba Search is one of the many people search engines on the Internet. Once the first and last names are entered, the user can search all the 50 states in America or a specific state. The results include the person complete address and phone number, including a marker on Google map for the user’s reference. Zaba also offers reverse phone lookup, background checks and searching via phone numbers. Curiously, when the results appear, an advertisement by US Search shows with the same person’s name, age and the cities and states the person has lived in. Advantages and Disadvantages of Public Access Public access to private information can bring about positive and negative outcomes to the researche r and the topic of the research. Although public access does help researchers find more information for social or educational purposes, these information may not be current. Having a citizen’s private data available on the Internet makes the person an easy victim of identity theft or other related crimes. Nevertheless, it also makes it possible for long-lost friends and family to get in touch with the person. For the person being researched, there are a couple of reasons public access can be bad. One is identity theft which has become a significant offense in the United States with around 10,000 groups involved in the activity. (White, 2012) There are several ways to commit identity theft and all of these require personal information such