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The Pennsylvania State University

The Privacy Paradigm

Caroline Camp
ENG 137 Section 011
Professor Babcock
4 November 2018
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The desire to be left alone, to enjoy moments of quiet with nothing but one’s own

thoughts demanding their attention, is a desire universally understood by humankind. While at

times highly social creatures, humans need these moments of peace to reconnect to their center

and recharge for additional interpersonal interaction. U.S Justice Louis Brandeis deemed privacy

“the right to be left alone” (Sharp), and, still hotly debated in society today, this right to be left

alone dates back to the foundation of American government where protections against invasion

of privacy were built into the Constitution as a result of the abuses of power under English rule.

With the third amendment protecting the right to privacy of the home against housing soldiers,

the fourth amendment protecting against unreasonable search and seizures, and the fourteenth

amendment protecting the right to due process of law (Sharp), it is clear to see that, in early

American history, privacy was a fundamental value important enough to warrant protection by

the government. To return to the ideas of Brandeis, he wrote, “recent inventions and business

methods call attention to the next step which must be taken for the protection of the person”

(Brandeis and Warren), arguing that the growth of the press and government’s access to

previously inaccessible aspects of personal life demanded evolution of the law. While Brandeis

may never have imagined the technology in the hands of American citizens today, he certainly

understood the ever-evolving nature of the privacy debate and recognized the need for the law

and culture to evolve parallelly. As a result of the invention of the internet, online privacy has

emerged as a pressing issue, and ever since, risks to personal data have plagued consumers, yet a

culture obsessed with social media has failed to take action against these risks and shift in the

opposite direction towards increased privacy in the digital age.

To understand the change in attitudes towards privacy in the United States, one must first

examine the mechanisms driving the debate: the innovation of new technology. Beginning with
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the invention of the internet in 1967, privacy online was a non-issue. No digital threat to personal

data existed. However, the creation of cookies in 1994 marked an end to this relatively private

era of the internet, and Netscape Communications could now check whether visitors to their site

had been there before (Marshall). Inevitably, advertisers found a use for this tool, as well, and

began tracking consumer’s online behaviors. From there on out, cookies forever compromised

privacy online and until 1996, the public remained largely ignorant of this fact. In 1996, the

Financial Times of London published an article alerting consumers to the existence of cookies

tracking their online activities. While shocking information at the time, tracking things such as

sites visited, products purchased, and links followed has become an integral and acceptable part

of a modern company’s advertising and marketing strategy. Explaining this phenomenon, Chuck

McCutcheon writes, “meanwhile, as the Internet has become intrinsic to people’s lives,

companies have become voracious about obtaining consumers’ personal details — sometimes

without their knowledge — that can be used to market products to them” (McCutcheon). The

invention of cookies was a driving force facilitating the devaluing of privacy among a society

heavily reliant on the internet. Understanding this technological change will be critical when

examining the cultural changes that accompany it.

If Americans understand how cookies violate their privacy, why has there not been a shift

towards backlash against their use? With the serious implications for compromised privacy with

cookies also comes a convenient online experience that internet users have come to expect. From

remembering passwords for automatic log in or delivery of custom content, cookies provide the

ease of use characteristic of the internet, something that users would be hesitant to give up.

Furthermore, Google won the race for the dominant search engine in 2000 (Marshall) and ever

since has become so ingrained in daily life and culture. This beloved search engine, however,
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keeps logs of all searches. Arguably more important than the expedient internet experience

provided by “cookies”, Google’s collection of search queries has major implications for global

health. For example, “Google Flu Trends, a service that predicts and locates outbreaks of the flu

by making use of … aggregate search queries” (Tene and Polonetsky) aids in the early detection

and rapid response to minimize the impact of influenza. These two examples undoubtedly prove

that tracking internet usage has positive implications for society, but these positives must be

balanced against the serious risks for privacy. These examples also help explain why, even when

equipped with the knowledge of large-scale data collection, Americans continue to use the

internet without restrictions or self-censorship.

Another risk posed to consumer’s privacy emerges when one examines where exactly all

of the information constantly collected by cookies on the internet goes. Enter Big Data into the

privacy scene. Big Data, defined as “a sociological problem when data about us is collected and

mined by companies such as Facebook, Google, mobile phone companies, retail chains and

governments” (Smith, et al) is used by private and public entities alike use to create and analyze

profiles of individuals and accomplish their unique goals, anything from market research to

national security. A 2014 survey revealed that Americans are aware of this specific invasion of

privacy as it found that 91% of Americans “agree” or “strongly agree” that people have lost

control over how personal information is collected and used by all kinds of entities (Rainie).

Furthermore, just 9% believe they have “a lot of control” over the information that is collected

about them, yet 74% say it is “very important” to them to be in control of who can get

information about them. (Rainie). So, these statistics suggest Americans still appear to highly

regard the century old value of privacy, at least in theory, because in practice, their online

behaviors puzzlingly do not reflect that.

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If American’s online behavior does not reflect a concern for privacy, what does it reflect?

It reflects that, while plenty of the private information sitting in Big Data sets is harvested

unbeknownst to the owner, just as much is freely and voluntarily posted to social media pages.

People post about their family, the hip new restaurant they just tried, the life changing work out

class they took, the relaxing vacation they enjoyed, the new job they got, and countless other

intimate details of their lives. Social media has revolutionized how society communicates and the

level of sharing, perhaps even over-sharing, deemed socially acceptable. This behavior causes

obvious risks to privacy on the surface, but delving below just surface level social media posts

reveals additional threats “due to the vast amounts of data being uploaded every day it is next to

impossible to be aware of everything which affects us” (Smith, et al.). When posting to their

social media page, an individual makes a conscious choice to share that information. Many

times, what they may not realize is that many platforms have the capacity “to embed geo-data

and other metadata into the created content” (Smith, et al.). Even further, “some services also

extract embedded metadata and use this information for indexing and linking” (Smith, et al.).

When individuals enthusiastically share their pictures on Facebook and other similar platforms,

they in turn share a plethora of hidden and embedded data, opening themselves up to exploitation

and invasion of privacy. Technology has advanced to the point where users have no clue just

how much information they are sharing online and just how vulnerable they make themselves.

When understanding how the invention of the internet, cookies, and social media

prompted the development of the complex field of data privacy online, one cannot ignore the

cultural phenomena that made the shift possible. The public has increased access to knowledge

of the risks to their online security; nevertheless, many continue to post intimate and

compromising details of their lives for unrestricted consumption. The explanation for this puzzle
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of human behavior lies in that fact that many Americans, most notably younger generations,

derive their identity from their social media profiles. Constantly checking their phone, which

never leaves their side, and monitoring their feeds, “social media feeds the ego: likes and

retweets ape real world approval, while inherently unremarkable people with few skills or

substantial talent can amass many thousands of followers through pithy tweets and well-curated

Instagram shots” (Eror). The norms and habits of Americans in 2018 so heavily rest in how they

connect to others virtually, and addiction to smartphones and social media is so widespread, that,

even when faced with the invasion of privacy that occurs online, they do not change their

behavior.

At times in society, it takes a scandal to alert people to existing problems and call

attention to the need for change. This is exactly what happened on two separate notable

occasions in recent American history: Edward Snowden in 2013 and Cambridge Analytica in

2018. In 2013, “Snowden revealed that the NSA was using a program called PRISM to amass

data on people across the globe, including their email, Facebook posts and instant messages”

(McCutcheon). Attracting national attention and intense news coverage, Snowden, dubbed a

whistle blower by the public, instilled concerns over privacy from the federal government, and

following his revelations, 30% of adults said they took steps to hide or shield their information

and 22% reported they had changed their online behavior in order to minimize detection.

(Madden and Raine). Faced with evidence of government surveillance of online activity, these

statistics are surprisingly small. This event created the cultural atmosphere for a move toward

increased privacy. People were angry. The sanctity of privacy was invaded. Nonetheless, nothing

happened. The majority of Americans did not alter their internet habits in any way following

such a large scandal. Society simply continued to share on social media. Just five years later, in
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2018, the news broke that Cambridge Analytica, a political data firm employed by the Trump

Campaign in 2016, accessed the data of an estimated 87 million Facebook users. While

Facebook allows for the use of personal data for academic research as outlined in their terms of

service, they do not allow for the sale of transfer of this data as in the Cambridge Analytica case.

Following this revelation, 55% of Facebook users said they are “very concerned” and 25% said

“somewhat concerned” about their personal information being sold to and used by other

companies and organizations (Raine). Aside from public outrage at the compromised data, the

government also responded and ordered Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify about the

breach in front of Congress. This suggests that the federal government is taking steps towards

regulating major internet companies in the interest of protecting citizen’s privacy. When

comparing the cultural response of Cambridge Analytica to that following the Snowden scandal,

similar potential for change exists. Cambridge Analytica is a much more recent scandal with

repercussions still developing, so it remains to be seen if society will undergo another paradigm

shift to bring back high regard for privacy and consequently limit what they share on social

media. As the influence of social media in elections and the role of government in regulating

online privacy evolves in current time, this scandal could act as a catalyst for change, or it could

fall short again and sink into the background, perpetuating rampant posting and widespread

privacy invasion.

Now that society has reached a point in the evolution of privacy in the digital age where

protections from the government might be well-received as a result of data breeches, red flags

are still raised “because locking in policy in an area that is changing as rapidly as this is risky.

Where technology is changing rapidly, almost inevitably legislation stands in the way of

innovation and misses the target and is overly rigid” (Marshall). Ultimately, congress faces the
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delicate task of balancing individual privacy rights and protection of such with the benefits

reaped by society due to the impact of data collection on public health, national security, and

economic efficiency (Tene and Polonetsky). While many acts regulating online privacy have

been proposed, none have passed, due in part to the partisan nature of the country. Like most

issues in American politics today, the debate over privacy legislation is divided along party lines

with Republicans warning that overregulation may cripple the economic foundation of the

Internet (Marshall). The paradigm shift of privacy values and practices has created a debate in

public policy as the question of government regulation arises.

If the shifting attitudes towards privacy and government legislation of the same is a wave,

America currently sits at the crest. As new technology continues to develop and shape culture, so

the debate over privacy evolves simultaneously and continuously takes on new forms with each

new invention posing another risk to the right to be left alone. Where society clearly experienced

a paradigm shift and abandoned the sanctity of privacy with cookies and social media, it is

currently unclear whether society will continue to innovate and largely abandon data privacy or

if society will instead swing the other way, experiencing a reversal of the shift, and consciously

decide to share less. Long term, to ensure the preservation of the innovative spirit while also

protecting fundamental rights to privacy dating back to the foundation of America, society faces

the need to move toward a system in which the benefits of data for businesses and researchers do

not overshadow individual privacy rights (Tene and Polonetsky). What exactly this system will

entail remains to be seen, but it surely will require a delicate balance and a second paradigm

shift.
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Works Cited

Brandeis, Louis D. and Samuel D. Warren. “The Right to Privacy”, Harvard Law Review 4.5

(1890): 193-220. JSTOR. Web. 28 October 2018.

Eror, Aleks. “Social Media Addiction: Here's Why Millennials Are So Obsessed.” Highsnobiety,

Titel Media, 27 Sept. 2017.

Madden, Mary, and Lee Rainie. “Americans' Attitudes About Privacy, Security and

Surveillance” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, Pew Research Center:

Internet, Science & Tech, 24 Mar. 2016.

Marshall, Patrick. "Online Privacy." CQ Researcher, 6 Nov. 2009, pp. 933-56.

McCutcheon, Chuck. "Privacy." CQ Researcher, 14 July 2014.

Rainie, Lee. “How Americans Feel about Social Media and Privacy.” Pew Research Center, 27

Mar. 2018.

Sharp, Tim. “Right to Privacy: Constitutional Rights and Privacy Laws.” Live Science, 12 June

2013. Accessed 23 October 2018.

Smith, Matthew, et al. “Big Data Privacy Issues in Public Social Media.” Big Data Privacy

Issues in Public Social Media - IEEE Conference Publication, IEEE, 2 July 2012.

Tene, Omer and Jules Polonetsky, “Privacy in the Age of Big Data: A Time for Big Decisions”,

Stanford Law Review 64.63 (2011-2012). Web. 26 October 2018.