Every day we are faced with thousands of forms of advertising everywhere we go.

Businesses

and executives are always trying to find a way to increase profits, sell more items, or just simply

inform more people. With the rise and rapid growth of digital media, advertising and marketing

strategies are adapting to these platforms, making business strategies and advertisements all the

more prevalent. Driving down the interstate, someone may see billboard after billboard of many

different products or services. While you are sitting on your couch watching television, you are

bombarded with commercials of different products and services, much like the billboards.

Likewise, while you are driving in your car, you constantly hear commercials promoting the next

best item that you must have as a consumer! However, other forms of advertising now come

through digital media, where social media sites such as Facebook can access information through

your browsing history and then apply the ads accordingly. In today's day and age, millions of

questions and websites are googled daily, giving google access to your personal life, whether you

are comfortable with it or not. This raises a few great questions: are our lives becoming less and

less private everyday? Where can we draw the line between convenience and privacy? How

much information is too much information?

While Google is a wonderful, innovative, and extremely successful company, there is

plenty of concern about whether or not they have access to too much of our personal

information. It is hard to fathom that Googles access to and storage of vast amounts of personal

information create a serious privacy problem, one that Princeton computer scientist Edward

Felten recently called perhaps the most difficult privacy problem in all of human history (Tene,

1435). Many people may believe that these privacy concerns are nothing to worry about, for it is

all apart of the way a search engine is designed. However, others may disagree, saying that our

private lives are no longer private due to these issues. The biggest concern that seems to be is
that of identification. Google, and other search engines alike, can take the information that you

provide for them and discover who you are, what you like, and even what your daily routine is.

Because the internet is used by so many individuals, everyday millions of users provide Google

with unfettered access to their interests, needs, desires, fears, pleasures, and intentions. Many

users do not realize that the information is logged and maintained in a form which can facilitate

their identity (Tene, 1435). If users knew how much of their information was being given away,

it may or may not impact their use of Google, but would certainly bring about more questions.

Because of the internet, people may have a harder time keeping their personal lives

private. This can affect every aspect of someones life, including their career. Jobs do not come

easy in todays society, due to the high demand of employees with degrees in higher education.

Employers take many steps to choose the right employees to fit the needed positions, and one

step is raising some concern. Employers are now turning to the internet to find out information

about potential employees before they are hired. Those with jobs as therapists are also using the

internet to access information about their very own clients and patients. With the internet, there

is also potential for trainees - many of whom are likely to be well versed in social media websites

- to seek information about others online, including their clients (DiLillo & Gale, 160).

Therapists are there to assist those with personal problems. While clients may give personal

information and stories to their therapists, some things may not be said due to the fact that they

want this information to remain private. This may lead to clients not trusting their therapists, and

bring upon concern about what exactly in their lives is private. This could also potentially

damage relationships, something that Sherry Turkle has mentioned technology has the capability

of doing. Doing things online such as researching the clients that a therapist has, may take away

the ability to freely converse and ask questions. As Sherry Turkle has said in her book,
Reclaiming Conversation, The more people hide in their devices, the more they lose practice

in the skills they will need for success in the business world. They are getting faster with their

gadgets but they are not learning the essence. That essence, for Hammond, is conversation

(Turkle, 267). Being a therapist requires very professional personal skills with conversation and

other human beings, and being able to get information through technology may put a damper on

these skills. This would, in turn, make the relationship between client and therapist not as strong.

Now, not only are privacy concerns being heightened, but very important conversation among

people is being dampered.

Another large privacy issue concerning technology, is that of advertising. We are all faced

with many forms of advertising every day of our lives. Advertising and marketing is very

important to businesses as well as it is to consumers. Businesses want to increase awareness and

profits, while consumers want information about such items. The problem that arises, however, is

how exactly these companies advertise. Like I stated earlier, search engines have the capability to

access a plethora of information about its users and intermediaries and large publishers (such as

Facebook and Google), which we will designate as platforms, have access to technologies that

enable them to gather and analyze a considerable amount of data, at a very high speed, making it

possible to customize advertising using real-time auctions (Corniere & Nijs, 48). This means

that such platforms are able to access personal information about consumers to personalize

advertising to that consumer. For example, if someone were to visit a website about shoes, it is

likely that a shoe advertisement will appear somewhere on the internet. Whether it is on

Facebook or other websites, such companies will auction off these advertising slots to make this

form of advertising successful. Here, again, raises the privacy question: Is my private life really

my private life? Some may say that a user of such technology is assuming this when on the
internet, while others may say this is an invasion of privacy. Advertising agencies and companies

alike have the ability to access your private lives, such as your interests, and tailor their

marketing to those exact private lives. A possible remedy of this would be to disclose that

personal and private information is being gathered while on the internet. As stated earlier, some

may argue that this should be assumed, but others may disagree. The internet is a very vast

world, with a tremendous amount of information. If, while visiting certain websites, a

disclosure was given that personal information was being taken, then this issue might not be as

prevalent. Some may then say that this issue is not as controversial, or even choose to not visit

these sites.

Technology raises concern with privacy in many ways. Technology has the power to

access every user's personal information, as well the ability to damper conversation. While these

ideas can be viewed as negative ones, we today live in a society that would not succeed and

thrive without it. This debate about privacy and whether technology is great or not will be talked

about for a long time. What we do know, however, is that technology is a very powerful tool that

needs to be used in the correct ways.

Works Cited

Tene, Omer. "What Google Knows: Privacy and Online Search Engines." Utah Law Review 2008.4

(2008): 1435-436. Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 May 2017

DiLillo, David, and Emily B. Gale. "To Google or Not to Google: Graduate Students' Use of the

Internet to Access Personal Information about Clients." Training and Education in

Professional Psychology 3rd ser. 2011.5 (2011): 160-61. OaFindr. Web. 18 May 2017

De Corniere, Alexandre, and Romaine Nijs. "Online Advertising and Privacy." RAND Journal of

Economics (Wiley-Blackwell). 1st ser. 2016.47 (2016): 48-49. Business Source Premier

[EBSCO]. Web. 18 May 2017.

Turkle, Sherry. "Get Together. Have a Conversation." Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in

a Digital Age. New York: Penguin, 2015. 267-68. Print