The Internet: A Window into Your Life

   Americans today spend about a whole day per week staring inter a screen. Depending on the circumstances (blogging for companies, web-based jobs etc.), you may actually spend the equivalent of more than a full day just, pretty much, killing your eyes. Which is always great, don't get me wrong. But with Americans relying more and more on computers, TV, internet and the like, it means you'll have a higher chance of being compelled to sign up for all these other sites.

   The importance of this statement is simple. Some sites that people use every day, i.e. Facebook and Google (depending on your search engine), have built their whole company around the data customers give away, free of charge. Such data brokers look at the information people put up online, like what movies you've watched and the ratings you give them, and offer you discounts. They harvest this personal data and sell it, making it a multibillion dollar industry. These brokers know your usernames, ethnicity, religion, political views, income and even family medical history. Data brokers have been doing this for years.
   As mentioned, it's a multibillion dollar industry. There's a possibility that these brokers only care about your data for money because of another common thought: they won't find me, or there are too many people in the world to find out who sold your data. Perhaps the person behind the whole thing is just plain poor, and is trying to get money for their family. Perhaps  they're not qualified for anything else.
   But what if these brokers are average enough? They either don't care or shrug it off, like some other little problem. There are thousands of possibilities. If they get found out, they might get fined and make a big deal about apologizing. After all, we've already make, what, a gazillion dollars already, so one a one million dollar fine doesn't matter...

   And it's not like people really care to much. When it came to a privacy poll, people said they'd rather keep their personal data, instead of swapping it for convenience. 

   But really, people are just saying they care. About half of smartphone owners allow the garnering of location-based messages, if it means getting personalized offers. That's stark contrast, compared to that privacy poll. Already, people protecting their own privacy is a clear no-go.
   So what about the government? Should they protect their own people, or could they care less? Some people, like Professor of Privacy and Information Law Christopher Millard (University of London), say the internet is "unregulable", since the technology today is moving along too rapidly. If the government passes some new bill, people will likely find a loophole around it, bypassing, say, four vital steps in protecting your Gmail or Yahoo account for convenience or procrastination, saying "I'll do it tomorrow." And tomorrow you'll say tomorrow. And then the day after, you'd just say someday. Someday will become never, and you'll lose your bank passwords or SIN numbers or this and that. People have the same, lazy mindset: it didn't happen to me, or I'll remember. Yeah, right.
   Maybe this time, the government has passed a bill, including an online step you can't skip. Because of human procrastination, the government has had its work tossed down the drain, by not actually signing up and using numerous tactics to avoid the page with the security question. Another possibility would be that they've increased the key words for terrorism, murder and the like greatly (which, at a smaller scale, has already taken place). It's am awful idea; the results can be out of context. A harmless little ten-year-old can be curious and wonder what happened on 9/11 after watching parts of a documentary. This not only scares the little kid out of his pants for the next few years, but also wastes time. The government is supposed to look for some thirty-year-old grizzly old man that help al-Qaeda, not some kid that enjoys making Lego Batman fight the Joker.
   The big root of the problem can be blamed on the people for not caring enough about their own privacy. Then these people will tattle on the government for not putting the required effort into protecting the people, when really, the people did it to the people. You don't put everything to private, and brokers come and snatch up the data.
   Should everybody actually be aware of their non-existent privacy (or go some length to get it back), cyber theft would be a much harder feat to pull off. Or, if the companies that actually snatch everything up like it's Christmas everyday actually backed off a little and warned you about the dangerous consequences of having everything public, humanity will finally realize how dangerous the world is. It's like watching/reading a sad movie/book that reveals how terrible the world really is. Rather than reading about someone die, you get to see them actually die in HD. That is eye-opening.
   I believe the general public is being either super ignorant or compliant (in terms of giving up). The government is trying, but the people are swatting away their efforts like those annoying little gnats that buzz everywhere and you can't get rid of them and eventually they nearly run into your eye. The people are oblivious to the fact that their privacy is in danger. Perchance, if we catch the public's attention, however pea-sized it is, they'll be slapped into focus. It'll be better than living with the next generation of equally ignorant, if not more, kids.
   

The internet is just an easier way to peek into your life.

(Note: the indents seem a little off, though everything has been spaced evenly...It bothers me.)