# Privacy

Are our phones really listening to everything that we are saying? I feel as if this is a common hyperbole that I tend to make whenever something I was just thinking about or talking about shows up on my browser. Of course I'm always a little bit shocked when I find out that it's so easy to find out what I like and what I dislike. I even find it a bit creepy at times, should I really be implementing more blockers and making sure that I have certain settings turned off? If so, what are those settings and who's going to tell me what the right decisions are to make in terms of my privacy. I've always known that my personal data is getting collected whenever I do anything online. In the end, I treat that as a trade-off. Companies get to know what I might buy from them and I get to use the web. However, this assignment was alarming to me because with just a few clicks I could see every site I accessed in the past day and the context of these sites could give a lot away about things that I might consider private and could be possibly detrimental if somebody else could access them.

Screenshot 1:
If you look here you can put two and two together that I am about to accept a co op offer beacuse of my access of the secure and sign site... do I want my browser to know that?

Screenshot 2:
Here you can see exactly what kind of computer I am using, could this potentially be a goldmine for electronics advertisers?

In “Facebook isn’t secretly listening to your conversations, but the truth is much more disturbing” by Rich Haridy, he describes the reality of the myth I mentioned earlier. He mentions that if Facebook and apps like such, are really listening to every word that we say, the data load that they would have would be very noticeable and not something that they could just hide and secretly get away with. This leads to the conclusion. The scarily accurate nature that ads seem to be targeted towards us, is more like a maze of context cues that spreads way larger than we think it does. He mentions the example of wedding related content showing up while you browse even though you haven’t searched for anything of the sort, you have only spoken about it. This might lead to the conclusion that you are being listened to, but in reality your facebook friend is getting married and you are seeing content because she has been searching up all sorts of wedding related items.

I struggle to say that there is any all encompassing way that we can protect our privacy and still use the internet effectively. In “Data and Information”, Kerighan discusses the trade off that we need to make in terms of our privacy and our ability to use the internet. It is mentioned that many people offer up their data and privacy to simply have an easier time navigating the web. I would like to say that this is foolish, but in reality, it is something I do everyday. I will let sites access my photos or my location simply so I can use their service. It may not be a necessity but it is a convenience. I also believe that these conveniences add up, and at a certain point, are unavoidable. So, while there may be little setting we can turn of to protect some of our privacy, in general there is not much we can do other than compromise: data for the use of the internet.