Pros And Cons Of Online Tracking

Everyone is being watched. Everything that is done on the internet is tracked. When most people hear this, they prefer to block all forms of tracking when they browse the internet. This would be okay if it was not for the fact that most people cannot live without several services that require a certain degree of tracking. It is some of these features that people have come to depend on in their everyday life, thus blurring the line that separates acceptable tracking from stalking. This means that the biggest issue with internet privacy is that most tracking is not illegal. Thus quite a lot of tracking borders, and may even cross, the boundary between tracking and stalking. Therefore, tracking is both good and evil, amoral as some would call …show more content…
Some regulation that would be helpful would follow some basic guidelines. One of these principals is that tracking should be something you agree to, not something that is done behind your back. Another standard that should be put in place is that all information gathered must be kept anonymous. Also the government would have to take into consideration that the companies need to have some wiggle room in order to make money. Another regulation should be that all your information be heavily protected from hacks and other forms of attacks. Some acceptable intrusions would be targeted advertising, as long as the tracking service keeps all the information to themselves and does not sell it to other companies. All of these are relatively simple steps that the government could, and should, take to ensure a user’s safety when browsing the …show more content…
Tracking is both good and evil, just like money. It is not the tracking that is evil, it is the way it is used that is evil. There are some very creepy tracking services out there, including one called Canvas Fingerprinting, which is extremely difficult to block. Most tracking today is very stalker like, and it needs to be tamed into a reasonable service. Tracking is a necessary evil, but that does not mean that the government should not do anything to help regulate this growing industry. Even if the government does not do anything to help regulate the different tracking mediums there is lots that the consumer can do to help shield themselves from tracking. The consumer is able to use myriad of blocking programs and add-ons, such as AdBlock or Ghostery, designed to halt tracking as much as possible. Cyberspace is wrought with a tracking that helps others know all about you, but it cannot be completely removed, because it is an integral part of the World Wide Web as we know it