The Holy Grail of Privacy
Unfortunately, the realities of
technology make it possible for online businesses and advertisers to turn the
Internet into a realm where activities and habits are monitored and recorded,
without consumer knowledge or consent.1,2
Anything that can be known will be known, and it will be known to a greater
degree of precision than was ever thought possible."3
With the advent of the "dot-com's" and commercial use, the Internet has become effectively distributed throughout popular culture. Currently the United States has more than 110 million users accessing the Internet for information, commerce, and communication. This is nearly 43% of the world's online population.4
The World Wide Web's growth has focused on satisfying the consumer and seeker of information. But programmers and information providers are making covert changes to the system. As the Internet evolves into its third generation of growth, new configurations and functionality, transparent and unknown to the user are being added. The Web is now a "bottom-up" builder and compiler of data and information resources that are both searchable and configurable. The building of powerful analytic information resources based on the aggregation of dispersed individual data defines a new area of growth, prosperity and power for the Internet entrepreneur.5
Huge database structures operating under CORBA protocols (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) and XML (Extensible Markup Language) tagged data capabilities facilitate this tracking through the combinatorial power of data system interchange and analysis.
(For more information: http://www3.ncr.com/architecture/occa6/distssvc/dscnt.htm.) Distance, time, and location are spanned in a matter of milliseconds. It is the ability to combine these data elements into a clearly distilled and individually tailored imprint of one's words, actions, deeds, and personal history that begin to loom as a potential demon in the mind of law-abiding citizens.
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