Annotated Bibliography
1. Cranor, L. internet privacy: A public concern. Net Worker 2, 3 (June/July 1998), 13-18.
Online privacy policies are legal documents that state the ways that parties gather, uses, and disclose user’s data online. The privacy policies are very difficult to comprehend. The hidden secrecy behind privacy policies is that you need to be on a collegiate reading level to understand it first and foremost. This paper evaluates three main formats: layered policies, which present a short form with standardized components in addition to a full policy. The privacy finder privacy report, which standardizes the test descriptions of privacy, practices in a brief bulleted format. The last format is non-standard human-readable policies. The authors did an online study that tested 749 internet users and the results were unsatisfactory. Users could not understand company privacy policies in any of the different formats. Users were more likely to read the privacy policies in its natural readable language.
In this paper there are many strengths and weaknesses, but the positive outweighs the negative. The strengths of this paper first and foremost are that I can relate to this paper in many aspects because I do not read privacy policies. Another strength that stuck out to me the most was that this paper was interesting, easy to follow and easy to comprehend, while others can be a bit unreadable and dull. Although it is not a great idea to ignore the policy, it is not in an eye-catching, readable language that everyone can understand. In my opinion, putting policies in a language that not everyone can understand is a way to steer our generation away from thoroughly reading our policies.
I believe that this paper has given me a great amount of insight as to why or why not people read policies. The reason users do not read privacy policies is because most people who are on social media may not be on a collegiate reading level to even understand the fine print. However, they introduced a tool called the Anonymity that allows you to search anonymously. A dislike/weakness I had about this paper was that it did not tell you about the ways hackers are able to get through these tools. There are ways that they can still view your online purchases, your personal information used to purchase these items, and also view your most viewed things online. My main concern now is that people have access to and the ability to steer around these “safe” tools that are supposed to “protect” you.
2. Getoor, L. (n.d.). To Join or Not to Join: The Illusion of Privacy in Social Networks with Mixed Public and Private User Profiles. Maryland.
In this article Getoor unpacks the true meaning of “private user profiles”. Often times, people think that because their page is marked private, then no one can see them or their information. In most cases this statement is inaccurate. Group affiliations and friend links are often visible to the public which would make a person open to the public. This article gives readers insight about privacy and you aren’t guaranteed privacy in most cases. In my opinion, there is no such thing as privacy. Even when you believe that your profile is private and you are incognito you are not.
This article does not have any weaknesses, only strengths. The reason I say this is because the author explained himself clearly and precisely. Not only do the authors open your eyes as to how much privacy you have online, but it allows you to recognize which social media networks have privacy settings. I relate to this article because I am very involved in social media. I believed that when enabling your privacy settings, no one would be able to view your page. However, of course, there is always a way around every situation and this article has displayed that. There are always hackers that can tamper with databases and get inside of information that you once thought was private. I’ve
