Ethical Issues of Internet Privacy

Privacy is a status wherein an individual can work on his/her information in seclusion, resulting in a selective revelation of one's identity and information. Privacy can mean anonymity in case a person wants to remain unidentified. Privacy can also be related to the security aspect of an individual or information. The definitions of privacy can differ across individuals and cultures. The invasion of privacy can be avoided by the issue of privacy laws.

Internet, which hosts an enormous information base, has given rise to the concept of information privacy. The vast information on the Internet faces security needs. Unauthorized access to the information is undesirable. Data privacy refers to the association between the technology and the legal rights related to it. Whenever any information about a person or a person's data is stored, privacy needs arise. Internet privacy is the control one has over what information about oneself, the person wishes to disclose. Internet privacy deals with controlling the access to information over the Internet.

Ethical Issues of Internet Privacy
Using the Internet often comprises of the use of social networking sites, email facilities and the browse of various other websites. Internet privacy comes on the scene when it comes to website users giving out their personal details on the Internet. For certain websites, which facilitate online shopping, the users are made to input their credit card numbers. In case of emailing sites, there are issues about whether third parties should be allowed to store or read emails without informed consent. Whether or not, the third parties should be permitted to track the visitors on a website, is another major privacy concern. The other important Internet privacy issue is whether the sites that gather personally identifiable information from the users should store or share it.

Internet privacy can be considered as a subset of computer privacy. Computer privacy consists of the data privacy relating to the avoidance of the improper disclosure of the personally identifiable information collected and stored by websites. The effective sharing of data while protecting the private information is the real challenge.

One school of thought denies the existence of Internet privacy while the other advocates the necessity of the Internet privacy. Complete anonymity is not the intent of Internet privacy. It rather intends to achieve a controlled disclosure of one’s personal information. Internet is a network of networks and when a person uses the Internet, he/she connects to it and is identified by an address. In technical terms this address is known as an IP address. For security reasons, a website may wish to track these addresses of its users. Websites may collect the non-personally identifiable information of their users. Such information is the one, which in no way can be used to uniquely identify a person. The disclosure of these forms of information is acceptable. It is actually the means by which websites track the users' Internet activities.

Some users prefer stricter forms of privacy such as anonymity to the Internet. Is it ethically right to allow users to use the Internet with a fake or an anonymous identity? While it caters to the privacy needs of some users, it may endanger the Internet usage for the others. Many users complain of being stalked by the anonymous users.

The freedom of expression endowed by social networking, has resulted in some Internet users publicizing wrong or undesired information under false names. They are free to discuss and opine about any and all topics in forums, chat rooms, communities and blogs. Moreover, such expressions do not require the users to disclose their identities. This raises issues in research ethics pertaining to the privacy of research subjects and informed consent. This is an undue advantage of the Internet privacy whereby the border between the private and the public spaces is made blurred. While providing open platforms for discussions, the Internet is ironically becoming a stage where fake people can voice false opinions and foster fallacies.

Does Internet privacy imply that all the information posted on to the Internet remains private and confidential? Does Internet privacy ascertain the privacy of every Internet user? There are people who dread using online banking and shopping websites because they doubt the unauthorized disclosure of their personal information. Some disguise themselves while using the Internet. Mailing lists and forum posts are a part of the search results on the topics discussed in them. Is it ethically correct to expose people's views in these ways? Some people fear the fact that they have a visibility over the Internet for such reasons.

The trade-off would be to define the demarcating line between what's public and what's private. Internet privacy is indeed important in case of the revelation of personally identifiable information but it requires to be delimited in cases where privacy puts the Internet ethics on stake.