One of the videos presented in class reminded me of documentaries I have watched before talking about how large internet corporations track their activity. The fact is that every activity we partake in is tracked by almost everyone from private corporations to the federal government. For an average citizen such as myself, it raises concern as it may always feel like someone is watching your every move. The dilemma gets even more confusing as these corporations start targeting you with specific ads and posts based on your own interests which you may have thought were private knowledge. Everything on the internet is interconnected and is used to target you specifically.
While the government should be working to protect our individuality and our privacy on the internet, the truth is that this data collecting benefits them as well as seen in the video mentioned above. the federal, state, and local governments can know your last known whereabouts or even ping your phone to pinpoint your exact location. The government won't do anything to harm this useful information they can gather and even purchase from these companies like Snapchat or Google.
Useful tools to protect ourselves do exist, one of the most common being a VPN which can protect you while browsing the internet. VPNs are becoming increasingly popular for this exact reason. Another easy way to protect your privacy is to simply be cautious about what you put out on the internet and what information you decide to share as that information is forever out there somewhere on the internet even if you delete it one day.
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