Privacy on the Net? Yeah...Right!

Nowadays, when there’s the slightest wink of a security threat on the internet, everyone starts worrying about their privacy, in terms of what they discuss online, or what type of browsing they do. Most importantly it’s about their entourage, especially with the blooming of social networking, not only details about who we are is conveyed, but also about the places we visit, about our friends etc…

We are all worried about these things (especially if the country we’re in puts some thought-expression bans). This got me thinking about privacy overall, which reminded me of when the blackberry service was on the verge of being halted in some of the countries of the mid-east. Everyone went on to be all angry and upset because of that. Did we think about the reason? Why did they want to stop the service?

They didn't want something they cannot monitor.

Now what makes it surprising is that we, the people, were all happy and glad when they declared that blackberry ain’t gonna be banned. But did we pay attention to the reason? 

Interim servers were installed (in accordance with RIM) that allows eavesdropping and monitoring.

Even though I personally consider that no matter what the security protocols were, anything passing through the internet cloud is vulnerable, is compromising anyone’s security. But what’s worth noting is that huge expansion of some companies to scary proportions:

Back in the days	Nowadays
	I wish it would fit here! Check it hereunder.
Yeah it’s not that accurate but it’s just about the amount of info disclosed.

(Click to enlarge)

My point is that with the massive amount of applications developed by internet giants, privacy is becoming marginal. Not in terms of violations, or information selling, it’s just that everything about us is conveyed to one company, on one server! This makes our information much easier to access; whether it was by people that perform identity thefts, random hackers, or simply people that are interested in knowing about you “unconventionally”.

I guess that since we cannot live without connectivity to the world, to our friend and family… we should follow what Google has once implied (thanks @Dar_El_Akhdar for the info):

Watch what you talk about on the internet. You don’t want it to get out; don’t say it!

An interesting link to show you how much privacy is at risk is Google transparency, this is the definition of Google transparency as stated by Google on the site itself:

"Like other technology and communications companies, we regularly receive requests from government agencies around the world to remove content from our services, or provide information about users of our services and products."