This article is on Google and how they are still trying their best to show everyone that they are concern with privacy and making their sites safe. On Friday they announced their revamp of its online Privacy Center. It has been reported that even US intelligence agencies have turned to Google to power their Intellipedia site, which is a "Wikipedia for spies." Google is insisting that they are strongly committed to protecting their users privacy even so which is funny considering the search engine have done more to hurt our privacy that an invention since the camera. It is their job to make information available and to do that they must diminish privacy. Google assures the public that there is another kind of privacy. They say its possible to have some privacy, but not total privacy. This pretty much means that is Google gets a subpoena then they will share what they told you would be private. Your privacy would be gone. Privacy has proven to be good and bad in the online world. Basically what Google has is not a privacy policy. They have a disclosure policy like what almost every other site has. Don't let it fool you. All of this relates to our study of privacy in the new media environment and how we are slowly losing all of it with the increased amount of business done on the internet and the types of information being shared.
E-medicine: It has strong devotees, but privacy issues slow growth of valuable programsThis article is on the emergence of this new e-medicine technique where people are able to view and access their medical reports and communicated through email to doctors. This article is about a man who saw his radiology test results online, notices that is indicated he had spots on his thyroid that could be cancerous, and then alerted his doctor to start treatment. This computer portal he used in the first step in creating this Web-based storehouse of health and wellness data controlled by patients and their doctors. Google and Microsoft are working right now in the development process. There are some skeptics who say the growth could potentially could be slowed by issues of privacy and by technical concerns over how paper files will be made digital. They say that it will be hard to convince people to put all of their medical information on a place as "open" as the internet. Deborah Peel who is a psychiatrist and advocate for the Patient Privacy Rights group say that tougher laws will be need otherwise we will for sure see an increase in identity theft. Microsoft's HealthVault is already starting to get put into use. Many people already enjoy the convenience of being able to check their record at their convenience. The biggest issue is that of privacy though. There would have to be a way for the patients to tightly control who sees their personal information. This ties in directly with the privacy material we have been covering. It is getting hard to keep information safe when so much of it is out their in cyberspace.
Teens Attend Cyber-Bullying SummitThis article is on how in these new online world that are developing for kids, their privacy is being infringed on constantly and it can often lead to a form of cyberbullying. The Internet has become just another useful tool for hate. The Anti Defamation League has stated that four in ten teenagers have been victims of cyberbullying. A summit was held in order to gain insight and try to address this situation. Simple question of privacy and defamation of kids online can often lead to violence in school and in the real world. Kids send nasty mail and make up vicious rumor about other kids that has really become a problem. As stated in the article, flaming is an online fight. It is "sending offensive messages, cyber-stalking is threatening, denigration means posting cruel gossip or rumors, impersonation is breaking into someone else's account and posing as that person, outing and trickery is sharing someone's embarrassing information and exclusion is keeping someone from an online group." This has to do with how even on a low scale, like kids on myspace, defamation is a big issue and can lead to a lot of unwanted violence and anger.