Privacy in the Digital Age

We have entered an era where broadcasting yourself is the new norm. Social networking sites like Facebook & Twitter enable us to share our information with family and frieds which is great. But this also presents some privacy challenges that are a hot topic of discussion these days.

Some people might argue that privacy is not as big of a concern as it's made out to be. Just look at the recent FB decision to share user information with search engines. FB is one of the most popular sites on the planet with 500 million users and growing. Even a small percentage is a lot of private information.

It's true that people are social animals and want to share their information with closed ones. But many people also blindly trust these websites to not misuse their personal information. And that is an important question: can websites that have access to a lot of personal information be trusted? How much control do individuals have over their own information that can be instantly transmitted to 3rd parties around the world for reasons they are completely unaware of.

It seems like there isn't going to be much privacy for consumers in the digital age unless we demand it from organizations (similar to the FB user backlash). Websites should benefit from their users but not at the expense of their privacy.