Internet Privacy vs Commerce - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 9 Words: 2563 Downloads: 2 Date added: 2019/07/01 Category Law Essay Level High school Tags: Internet Privacy Essay Did you like this example? The internet was created to function as a network for a flow of information. After all the years since its creation, it has developed and evolved greatly into such a powerful tool that a majority of us today, are using it on a daily basis. One of the greatest advantages about the use of the internet is electronic commerce, the activity of buying and selling online. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Internet Privacy vs Commerce" essay for you Create order We can search through thousands of stores on the web and purchase what we want without having to be present at a certain place. Though it is great and extremely convenient for us, there is one thing that we are not aware of and that is our privacy. We put in a lot of our information on the internet more than we know of it and the unsettling thing about it, is the collection of that information and how its being used. E-commerce thrives off data from individuals and the way its done is business owners would exploit users data, our data, and privacy to expand their own businesses. Tension and issues arise between e-commerce and privacy. Our data is constantly being collected, shared to, and used by companies without our knowledge since its all happening on the backside of the internet where they have all these algorithms to perform their actions. The use of cookies is the main key of data collection in the e-commerce world. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your machine to help the site provide a better user experience.1 When visiting a website, cookies are used to store user information such as shopping carts, and login information. These are known are first-party cookies. We often see the function of these cookies when we sign in to a site, and it keeps us signed in until we manually log ourselves out. Our login information is saved in these cookies, so we dont have to keep re-entering every single time we revisit a site. Privacy issues can arise from this if searching is done on a shared computer. One might receive advertisements to sites from which another user has been on, but that user mightve wanted it to be kept private. Some online retailers have the ability to use cookies to store more important information such as credit cards or any other type of payment information. We dont usually share tha t type of information to anyone that easily but since we are entering it to certain sites that are able to store it, we are entrusting some of our privacy. Third-party cookies are the worrisome cookies that can track web surfing habits. They track our behavior on the web whether its what websites we go on, how much time we spend on those websites, see our interests are, etc. They spy on our every action on the internet and track us from site to site, gathering data from us. Using this information, advertisers are able to generate ads relating to your interests or sites you often go on. For example, we can see this if we lets say visit a site about kitchenware. If we go to another site, there is a high possibility where there will be ads related to kitchenware. Marketers buy advertising rights on thousands of popular websites in order to collect the information through cookies. With the knowledge of our preferences, the sites we frequently visit, and or the purchases me make, they can widen their customer base to maximize their business to its full potential. They can advertise themselves in other websites we visit that arent even related to themselves hoping to lure us back in the site or to make us purchase similar items. When people click on these ads, it feeds them even more information about it thus having their advertisements would pop up more frequently. The placement of ads and promotions on social media has become more common than ever due to more people going on social media every day. Cookies and algorithms are constantly being used to track your information such as mentioned before, see where you are from, what your interests are and what type of content you often look at. In doing so, they can generate certain groups containing certain posts based on that data such as current popular trends. Popular trends are based on the amount of comments, shares and likes from people and if enough people do either of those things, you will most likely see them. Businesses can take advantage of this and use to generate ads related to whatever is trending and most like by customers to promote themselves. The more users that are targeted, the higher the chance of purchases will be made. The main use of the information being collected by companies is to profile us and then selling it. These companies are known as data brokers. By tracking our activity on the internet, they start to build a profile of who we are, where we are from and what our interests are. The information obtained by data brokers arent just limited to what we do online. They able to obtain it in a large number of sources such as government and public records, social media, self-reported information from consumers, other companies that provide information about their customers in exchange for new customers, and/or from other data brokers.2 Data brokers then use this information and sell it to other advertisers, other companies or even the government. This is no doubt an invasion of our privacy. They are making profit of our personal information and giving our it away to third parties without our consent or full knowledge. One of the largest data brokers in the world is Acxiom. They are one of the hundreds of companies that peer into our personal life and collecting data generated from whatever we do line and even in the real world.3 In 2011, the company recorded $1.1 billion in sales offerings analytical services on 144 million households and thats just a fraction of the evolving big-data industry.3 In 2017, they claimed to hold data on all but a small percentage of US households and their data is said to be sued to make 12% of the nations direct marketing sales. 4 Many critics about data brokers is that fact that the average consumer has no idea that their intimate personal details are up for sale on these sites. 3 Personal data are being used and sold without our knowledge. Acxiom was also criticized in particular from reports of people having difficulty to prevent Acxiom from using their data or to remove their own data from the systems. The company later responded by offering a global opt-out and giving consumers some visibility about what information on them is held. According to an FTC privacy survey, although 57% of the busiest sites allow third-party cookie placement, only 22% disclose that fact in their privacy policies. 5 Since not all information is given visibility to consumers, part of it is still hidden from us. Different types of personal information can raise different types of privacy concerns. A common issue is the use of consumer preferences information leading to price discrimination. Price discrimination is the action in which companies would sell the same product at different prices to different buyers in order to maximize their sales and profits. They are able to do this from gathering our consumer identification such as our background and our online purchasing behavior. This is quite incompatible with our privacy protection because consumers want privacy, implying freedom from being tracked 6 yet merchants would snoop around personal information to gain the ability to charge different prices to improve their profits. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has recommended legislation to regulate online profiling but current American privacy law barely contain any general prohibitions against the collection of consumer data. Since the government doesnt regulate these data brokers, it is unclear how secure they are from hackers. 7 Security risks can arise due to this since data such as consumers credit-card number or personal address can lead to financial fraud or spam from hackers or any unauthorized users using that information. Many users fear the loss of their financial and personal data. There are many technologies including cryptography and encryption that can settle but it depends on how secure and perfect they are performed in certain companies. Not a lot of consumers are aware that their web activities is constantly being collected. Some may have no problem since some of their information that theyre receiving matches their presumed interests, but many do not realize that they might not be getting the full range of options available because of the salary data, and more crucially, records of previously visited internet sites are already in the hands of some companies. 8 Consumers dont have control where their data is going because many arent even aware of the collection of their own data and even if they were to address it, they would not know who to go to exercise their rights under the relevant Data Protection Laws. According to the survey from Blue Fountain Media, it is revealed that 90% of its respondents are very concerned about their internet privacy and 48% wished that more was being done about it. 9 A poll in a Business Week discovered that over 40% of online shoppers were very concerned over the use of personal information and 57% of them wanted some sort of laws regulating how personal information is handled. 10 There is low confidence when it comes to giving the trust of personal data online. Even though many people are concerned about how their privacy and personal information are being handled online, they dont feel empowered to do anything about it. They have very little control over how their information being shared, revealed, used, or sold by businesses. On May 25, 2018, European Unions new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) takes into effect. It contains a wider scope and stronger enforcement compared to the past Data Protection Directive. With this regulation, it imposes strict new rules on controlling and processing personally identifiable information as well as extends the protection of personal data and protection rights by giving control back to EU residents. 11 The rules for protection of personal data affects both inside and outside of the EU. Essential items that are included in this regulation contain the increase of fines, breach notifications, opt-in consent and responsibility for data transfer outside the EU. This becomes a huge impact to businesses and change the way in how customer data will be collected, stored and used. Consumers will have more rights about their personal information being collected. People have all been confronted with the terms of service agreements and privacy policies when they visit sites. A lot of times its required to click on agree before having access to a site or application. These regulations aim to ensure that consumers can make informed decisions, but current privacy policies are missing the mark and in fact, they are surprisingly ineffective at informing customers according to researchers. 12 Privacy policies are usually tens of pages long and because of that, no one really reads them. A study in 2008 was estimated that it would take 244 hours a year for the typical American internet user to read all websites they visit. Privacy policies are also difficult to understand, often requiring college-level reading skills. They mostly cover multiple services that are offered by a company which results in vague statements that make it difficult to find concrete information on how personal information is handled and being shared to. 12 It is suggested its be tter to have mini notices such as alert boxes to notify users what theyre doing with their data when visiting a site or using an app. Some sites and apps like Google are already doing so. When searching something on Google, usually an alert box pops up asking users if they allow it to access their location while using the app. These short and simple friendly notices not only let users know their location can be recorded, it also lets them decide whether they want their location shared or not. Most online consumer privacy groups now contain this new default standard for cookies named Opt-Out, which means consumers are notified via an alert, or a window when they load onto the site. Users will have to give consent by clicking accept before they are able to navigate the site and any cookies are planted into their browsers. This helps give the users the sense of knowing that the site is gathering their information for the uses and policies for processing and disposing of that data. Its essential for users to gain the right to know if the information is being gathered contains any personal identifying data, the right to get a copy of the data collected at an affordable price and in a form that the consumer can readily understand, the right to request corrections of the data and the right to have the data on browsing behavior within the website destroyed. 13 Having an opt-out cookie can be effective regarding the safeguard of users information. Simple notices are clean, easy an d understandable compared to long texts that are difficult to read. Consumers cant completely prevent companies from creating profiles of them using cookies but there are still some ways users can still protect their privacy. There are several free programs available for download that you can utilize to identify companies that are trying to store cookies on your browsers, delete cookies on your system, or prevent minimize the work of cookies. Ghostery is an example of a free add-on that you can install onto your browser. It can detect cookies from companies trying to spy on you, gives you background information about them and lets you block those cookies whenever you want. You can also go to your settings in your browsers to choose whether you allow third-party cookies and/or block sites from setting any data. There are several ways people can do to enhance their own security to protect some of their data. Login credentials are crucial to be able to access certain sites where people store their information. Its highly recommended that people reset their passwords once in a while and as well as to not use the same password for every site. Because some websites often save or cache browsing history, it keeps you logged in unless you manually log out. When using a public computer, its important to log out or else another use might be able to access your account and take whatever information is stored in that account. The chosen ecommerce platform should be secured as well as the connection being used for online check out. Be cautious about the activities performed on sites to make sure theyre not suspicious. With the internet and technology being more advanced than ever, its best to be safe. In order for consumers to have better protection of their data privacy, governments and stakeholders should work together. Businesses should protect consumer privacy by ensuring that their practices relating to the collection and use of consumer data are lawful, transparent and fair. Its also important for consumers to be aware about their data collection being used and given a choice whether they allow that or not. Privacy rights are important and personal data should be carefully secured. If companies want to be trusted in business, they should earn that trust by providing those rights to their consumers.

Interview Senator Flake s Office - 1255 Words

When signing up for an internship in Senator Flake’s office, I did not know what to expect. I did not know the type of work I would be doing. I hardly knew who Senator Flake was. It sounded like an interesting opportunity that I learned about at the job fair, and I thought it would be fun. It was far more than fun though—I learned so much from my internship, researching for the office, attending meetings, writing letters, and staying up-to-date on current events. More than anything else, though, I learned from the constituents themselves. I started the internship quite liberal-minded, like many students at the University. My roommate joked with me that I would leave my internship at the Senator’s office a hard-core Republican, but I was†¦show more content†¦After speaking to people, I often had a time to reflect on what I heard. The product was a much greater understanding of the complexity of the American political system. I grew up thinking that that one side was right, and the other was full of irrational arguments. However, people sharing bits of their lives with me taught me that is not true. The support and opposition for every policy makes sense, and deciding which is right is far more of a value judgment than a facts-based judgment than I could have imagined. I feel less sure about what I believe politically after the internship, but again, I do not think that is a bad thing. For the first time, I know how to enter into a thought process without a bias, and able to listen to both sides. This sk ill is critical for any studies or career in the social sciences. Talking to constituents, I also learned how to read the news. It requires a lot more critical thinking than I had imagined. One day in Senator Flake’s office, I received a phone call about the Senator wasting time at Neil Gorsuch’s hearing by asking irrelevant questions. I could not believe the comment—I had gained respect for the Senator, but I did not think it was right for him to use up valuable time in a hearing that democrats and republicans around the country deserved to hear. After the phone call was finished, I looked up information about the scenario, and I saw it lined up on Google, half a dozen sitesShow MoreRelatedBarack Obama s Election For Immigration Reform2613 Words   |  11 Pageselectorate—the highest ever recorded (Lopez Taylor, 2012). With less than a year for Obama left in office, immigration legislation is struggling. Despite bi-partisan efforts, the future for comprehensive immigration policy is bleak. The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act (S.744) made great strides towards comprehensive reform in 2013. The arduou s passage of S.744 was a victory for immigration reform but its subsequent failure in the House of RepresentativesRead MoreBusiness Journalism in India26104 Words   |  105 Pagesmarkets, with governments scrambling to prop up banks, broaden guarantees for deposits and agree on a coordinated response. Origins The roots of the credit crisis stretch back to another notable boom-and-bust: the tech bubble of the late 1990’s. When the stock market began a steep decline in 2000 and the nation slipped into recession the next year, the Federal Reserve sharply lowered interest rates to limit the economic damage. Lower interest rates make mortgage payments cheaper, and demandRead MoreGp Essay Mainpoints24643 Words   |  99 Pageswilling to bear the responsibility of bringing good-quality broadcasting to all †¢ Commendable brocasting in light of possible political adherence is British Brodcasting Corporation (BBC) †¢ Shows like â€Å"Hard Talk† present round-table debates and interviews with eminent leaders from around the world Who determines what is censored? †¢ As the Romans eloquently put it: quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will guard the guardians? If censorship has been established as a crucial concept which does not

The Lucky Luciano’s History Free Essays

Lucky Luciano Lucky Luciano made the modern mafia. In 1931 he cut New York into five slices and served the rackets up in a form that still exists today. He had his fingers in every slice of the metaphoric mince meat pie that was America in the first half of the twentieth century, and then spent his remaining years ruling the underworld from afar. We will write a custom essay sample on The Lucky Luciano’s History or any similar topic only for you Order Now In the history of organized crime, there has never been a more powerful boss, and unless there is a drastic change in American law enforcement, no one person will ever be able to consolidate so much criminal power again. In 20 years, with the help of the 18th amendment, Charles Luciano went from being an average pimp to a God amongst thugs. With the help of a number of other famous gangsters, Lucky built a single, business-like crime syndicate with a board of directors and a directed sense of purpose. It would come to rule the entire United States, and eventually, a good portion of the world. From Humble Beginnings Born in italy in 1896 as Salvatore Lucania, Lucky Luciano eventually changed his name to spare his family the embarrassment of reading about him in the newspapers. As a kid, he was a thug; he dealt drugs, sold women, and stole anything he could. He was constantly picked up by New York police, who typically smacked him around and dropped him back on the streets due to his age. Junkies everywhere, take note: Charlie â€Å"Lucky† Luciano created the modern heroin trade. Thanks Chuck! In 1915, at the tender age of 19, Luciano was first arrested for dealing heroin on the streets of New York. Upon release, he broke his sales ring into a tiered affair, with thugs standing on street corners dealing out the dope while he stayed upstairs with the women. He was probably one of the first gangsters to use it in his pimping operations to help keep the girls loyal. In 1920, Luciano joined Joe Masseria’s gang and helped run booze, manage prostitutes, and traffic horse for the Sicilian mafia. Masseria trusted Luciano, who was a great and reliable earner. He eventually became Masseria’s right hand man, making him one of the most powerful gangsters in New York. Somewhere in the 20’s, Lucky met Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky. This three-way introduction is one of the classic underworld myths, and many versions of the story exist. One alleges that Lansky was a heroin addict at the time. Others describe awkward scenes featuring screaming hookers, naked Jews, and Lucky the belt wielding pimp. And still others describe Lansky whacking Luciano upside the head with a plumbers wrench to defend a crying Bugsy. No matter how it went down, the event served as a symbolic destruction of the old racial walls that existed in the New York underground. Previously, Italian and Jewish gangs tended not to associate on the street, but Lucky would be one of the first to cross the cultural lines and forge an alliance between the groups. Siegel, Lansky and Luciano would become the driving force behind the eventual formation of the National Crime Syndicate: Lucky was the heart of the syndicate, Lansky its brains, and Bugsy its fist. Sicilian Neck Tie In 1929, Masseria’s gang became embroiled in a violent turf war with Salvatore Maranzano’s mafia. Maranzano was a megalomaniacal don fixated on becoming the one and only ruler of New York. In October that same year, Luciano was on a dock at on the Hudson River inspecting a load of fresh chiba that had just arrived. Four of Maranzano’s men rolled up in a car, grabbed Luciano and taped his mouth shut. They beat the shit out of him for an hour as they slowly drove towards Staten Island. Once there, they slit his throat and cheek, then dumped him in a ditch and left him for dead. Luciano lived through this attack, earning him the nickname â€Å"Lucky. † Luciano saw the attack as a sign that the gang war had to end, and soon. He, along with Siegel and Lansky, went to see Maranzano. They struck a deal with Marazano to divide up Masseria’s empire: Marazano got the liquor turf, Luciano got the girls and the drugs. Luciano set up a dinner meeting with Masseria at the Nuova Villa Tammaro, a spaghetti house on Coney Island. After a few hours of feasting, he excused himself to use the pisser. In walked Bugsy Seigel, Joe Adonis, Vito Genovese, Albert Anastasia, and Meyer Lansky. Out walked Luciano as the new leader of Masseria’s gang. Only half a year passed before Siegel and Luciano bumped off Marazano. This placed Luciano in charge of New York. Through agreements with Dutch Schultz and other Manhattan turf barons, Luciano was able to consolidate all underworld power and streamline the mafia. The Syndicate Rises Despite having dropped out of school in the 4th grade, Luciano had a business savvy unrivaled in the crime world. He set up a board of directors that included all the major players, including millionaire thug Joe Adonis and beancounter extraordinaire Meyer Lansky, who remained on the board until the late 70’s. There was even a trial structure to hear complaints and justly determine if someone should be whacked. The underground began to flourish, and the organization became known as the National Crime Syndicate. Gambling, prostitution, drugs, liquor, and guns could all be had from the Syndicate, and everyone in the underworld had to pay tribute to the organization by giving it a percentage in all takes. Even assassinations became big business thanks to Lucky. With the help of Bugsy Siegel and Albert Anastasia, Luciano formed Murder Inc. , a professional grade killing company staffed mostly with Jewish hitmen. Mobsters in need of a hit simply called Murder Inc and bought themselves some prescreened contract killers. It was much like 1-800-dentist, but with guns and piano wire instead of drills and laughing gas. This establishment was responsible for hundreds of hits throughout the late 30’s, including the killings of Dutch Schultz, Abe Wagner, and even it’s founder, Bugsy Siegel. Still Pimpin’ Luciano was on top of the world by 1936. He had a different woman every night, a habit he had picked up early on. By 1936, his empire of whores caught up with him. The state of New York had amassed enough evidence and testimony to put Luciano in jail for pimping by years end. Thomas Dewey, special prosecutor in the case, paraded a near endless stream of witnesses before the jury. Over 28 of them were hookers, and Luciano was incensed by this fact. He claimed that the government had coerced the testimony of these whores by offering them free trips to Europe and a steady supply of drugs. One of these hookers was permitted by the judge to take a shot of bourbon while on the stand to help keep the morphine shakes off long enough to finger Luciano. Initially, most people believed Luciano was grasping at straws, but some documents from Deweys offices confirm that a large number of tickets to Europe were purchased by the office in the same year as the trial. Luciano was sentenced to 30 years in jail for his alleged masterminding of the New York flesh trade. Prison didn’t dwindle Luciano’s influence. He remained firmly in charge, even under lock down. So great was his influence that when the US government was searching for German saboteurs in the ports of New York during World War II, they came to Luciano to ask for help. Luciano agreed, and used his power to bring the Nazi conspirators to the surface. Luciano also helped the government find contacts on Sicily and in Italy before the Allied invasions. In 1946, Thomas Dewey, now governor of New york, gave Luciano a pardon and deported him to Italy. There, Luciano lived out the rest of his days entertaining the like of Frank Sinatra Sr. and other celebrities. He remained active in Syndicate business, however, even in exile. In 1946, he flew to Cuba to meet with fellow mafiosos about turning the island into a floating Las Vegas. In December of 1946, Luciano arrived in Cuba to discuss the realization of plans for the island. All the biggest names in the mafia were there: Vito Genovese, Meyer Lanksy, Joe Adonis, and Santos Trafficante Jr. , relative of the infamous senator James Traficant. Aging gangsters arrived one after another, all there to pay respects to Luciano and affirm that he was still in control. Of those in attendance, Vito Genovese was the only real troublemaker. Genovese initially asked Luciano to step down from power, a request which infuriated the aging mobster. Eventually, after a few days of meetings, Genovese again asked Luciano to step down, and to retreat to Italy. Luciano was sure that Genovese had tipped off Washington to his presence in Cuba. Luciano leaped on Genovese and beat the living shit out of him, breaking three of the man’s ribs. Aside from wupping up on Gevovese, there were other issues to be discussed at the Havana conference. One issue was narcotics sales, something Luciano thought was becoming too hot for the mob to remain in. He pleaded with his underlings to get out of the business, but no one seemed to care. Meyer Lansky informed Luciano that Genovese was orchestrating much of the trade now, and his followers, as well as his enemies, were making too much money off of drug trafficking to back down now. Another issue was Bugsy Siegel. Bugsy had purposely been left out of the conference because his Flamingo hotel, by then $6 million in the hole, was a sticking point for many in the group. By the end of the conference, Siegel was marked for death. His old friend, Meyer Lansky was unable to help him because he was not allowed to vote in any conference matters. Only Italians could vote, and Lansky was a Jew. In 1962, Luciano was planning to help produce a movie about his life. A Hollywood producer flew to meet the aging gangster in Naples, Italy on January 26th. As Luciano was walking across the runway to shake the producer’s hand, he dropped dead suddenly of a heart attack. How to cite The Lucky Luciano’s History, Papers

Customer Service Dead of Alive Essay Example For Students

Customer Service Dead of Alive Essay Is customer service dead or alive? My career experience has been primarily in residential property management, where I have had extensive training in customer service. As a result, I have higher professional expectations for those whose job it is to deal with me as a consumer. In the past two weeks certain events lead me to believe that customer service is a dying concept for some companies. In the beginning of February I started a new position as an office manager for a growing manufacturers representative group. My first task was to upgrade our phone service and purchase new phones to accommodate our current as well as future needs. I made the first call to our local telephone service provider. After talking with a customer service representative for small businesses about our current number of lines, voice mail service, and potential employee growth, we decided it was necessary to add two more phone lines and upgrade our voice mail service. To my surprise, the installation schedule would require a two week wait, except for the voice mail, which would be installed the following Monday. With both appointment dates set, we ended our conversation. Monday morning I arrived at the office and quickly realized that we had no dial tone. Using a cell phone, I called the telephone company and requested that they restore our phone service. By late morning we had phone service but no voice mail. So I called customer service again and talked to another representative who was completely unable to answer any questions or tell me when our voice mail would be available. It took more than two weeks for the telephone company to get our voice mail system totally functional. The installation of our new lines seemed to go very smoothly. In fact, at this point I thought that our phone troubles were over. Then came several complaints from our dealers and manufacturers and I discovered that while installing our new phones lines they had turned off call forwarding. Thus, followed more calls to the telephone company, and a five day wait, our business phone service became functional. Customer service at the local telephone company is dead. Their representatives give us the illusion that it is alive, but my experience is otherwise. They have a monopoly that puts Bill Gates Microsoft to shame. Having no choice in your service provider has brought about the death of service. Thankfully, I can end this essay on a happy note. During a wonderful conversation with a customer service representative of a manufacturer of fax machines, my concept of service was resuscitated. Everyone needs a Bibliography: .