Week 10 Reflection -- Information Collection and Storage Through Internet Usage

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Since its creation, the internet has brought many new and often extraordinary experiences, tools, forms of communication, and informational resources into the world. For billions of people around the globe, the internet has become something that is relied upon nearly every single hour of every day. This relationship of sorts with something as large and as widespread as the internet has caused many people to begin to overly trust much of what they come across while delving into the great expanses of the World Wide Web and everything it has to offer. For hundreds, if not thousands, of companies formed since the dawn of the internet, it has been a great boon for their success. Many of the larger organizations or corporations, such as Amazon or Google, have become extremely successful and very wealthy due to their spread across the world via internet usage. As hundreds of millions of people around the world begin and continue shopping from Amazon or searching for the answers to questions about nearly anything on Google’s search engine, a vast plethora of information and knowledge is gained. For Google, they are able to see what people anywhere in the world search on their engine on an entirely individual basis and, after tracking and storing this information, they are able to use this knowledge to provide advertising to them based on the sites they visit and the questions they decide to ask. To many, this is a direct violation of their privacy. If a company such as Google is allowed to track this sort of information, there is no way of knowing to what extent it goes. There is a much greater amount of information being transferred with every single click than the vast majority of people using the internet realize. By using Google’s search engine to find and open a website, a person might be granting Google access to track and store information pertaining to them such as their IP address, their browser type, internet provider, and a vast amount of other varied bits of information that they could now use in any way they deem fit. Also unknown to the vast majority of users is what they see fit to do with this collection of information on billions of people across the globe. If it is a violation of privacy or not, Google and dozens of other corporations like them continue this practice each and every day.