The Ease of Obtaining Online Privacy

Griffith, Eric. “How to Reclaim Your Online Privacy,” PC Magazine,Vol. 28: (2-4). p Feb. 1, 2009. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. April 4, 2011.

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Although we make think that we may not have much privacy online, Eric Griffith thinks a bit differently, “While it's easy to give up, it's also easier than ever to take back your privacy.” In this article, Eric Griffith takes the helpful and informative approach to addressing an issue on every internet user’s mind: privacy. Griffith goes into great detail and gives strategies that can help people with “secretive surfing”. He attempts to address all internet users by including ways to be private while using the four most popular internet browsers; Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. He takes the point of view of informing people with little to no experience on computers, and he gives them a variety of different ways to keep their internet surfing relatively private. Some of these ways involve: altering cookie settings, deleting history, not giving email or any personal information to certain sites, anonymous personal proxy setup, encrypted email usage, and ways to secure your instant messaging. Overall, Griffith conveys a message of urgency to all internet users to take responsibility in their own hands to become more private and cautious while online. He does this by not only providing useful information to help his audience do this, but by also giving examples of things that could go wrong if these precautions aren’t taken.

Griffith’s article addresses a very significant issue that all internet users should be concerned with. He calls for the need of internet users to protect themselves from threats such as identity theft, viruses, and even cyber espionage. While protecting from all of these things, Griffith’s techniques would also preserve the privacy of online communications which is clearly something that we Americans feel entitled to. Another way in which Griffith successfully makes the audience care about the topic is by providing specific examples of the dangers of surfing the internet without any precautions. This is something that everyone should care about because it could affect anyone. Identity theft and viruses are both financially damaging possibilities that are threats every time anyone surfs the internet unprotected. Internet users read this article and are scared of the possible threats that await them online, but they also get the easy fixes that everyone should apply on their own. It is no one’s responsibility to protect themselves online than that person, so initiative should be taken.