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Concerns about privacy on the Internet have become pervasive in the past few years as more and more folks use the Internet with little sense of how their privacy may be compromised.  Parents are correct in trying to protect the privacy of children who may be quick to give away (knowingly or unknowingly) information about themselves.  Privacy concerns are both of a general and a specific nature.

Privacy Concerns

The mass appeal of the Internet and the ease with which folks can use information about you make it a challenge to protect your privacy.  The ways folks might take advantage of information about you or your child include: using this information to try to sell you merchandise based on your spending tendencies or interests; filling your mailbox with unwanted e-mail (sometimes called SPAM); selling information about you to another company; and preying on folks in other, sometimes criminal, ways.

Identify theft  Internet predators can use information about you to, in essence, become you.  By gaining your Social Security Number, credit information, family information, and other important data, these criminals can purchase goods or commit crimes in your name.  Your name becomes besmirched and you are left to clean up.  Precaution:   Never give out information about yourself without thinking through the consequences and checking the background of the person asking for it.  Look for privacy statements on web sites and participation in third-party privacy watchdog organizations such as TRUSTe and BBBOnline.

Account theft   Criminals sometimes write programs to steal passwords. For example, clicking on this button will show you an example of a "Trojan horse" that could be used to gain your account information:

Later, this password could be used to steal your data.  (Someone could also send out e-mail as you.)  Precaution:  Never give your password to anyone outside your family.

Harassment and physical harm   Once someone has gained information about you, they may use it to contact you via e-mail or the telephone, or they may even try to arrange a meeting with you.  One site will provide a map to the residence of anyone in the U.S. just by entering the person's telephone number.  Precaution:  Parents should always be consulted and present before any meeting takes place with someone you've met online.  If parents do consent to a rendezvous, they should be present and the meeting should be in a public place.

Less obvious attacks on your privacy   Not all privacy concerns are as straightforward as those above.  For example, web server logs store information about those who visit including the computer name and machine address, the page that was requested, the previous web page that was downloaded by the web browser (called the referrer), and your account name if the page was password protected.   Another source of privacy concerns are the use of cookies.   Cookies are small files that are downloaded to your machine and modified.  Any information you reveal could be stored in a cookie.  Usually, cookies are used to personalize web pages.  For example, a web site may make it possible for you to see stock quotes or new categories based on your choices.  For this to happen, a cookie is sent back and forth from your computer to the web server.  Unscrupulous web sites may use this information in ways that you never anticipated.  You can disable the use of cookies on your web browser but this may also disable useful functionality. 

Additional Resources