In today’s society, the Internet and humanity’s use of it plays a role in keeping the balance of the world. In fact, the internet's role in economic and cultural stability bleeds into everyday interactions in diverse communities around the world. However, with the recent series of events (for example, Facebook's Data Privacy Scandal and Cambridge Analytica shenanigans in 2016 presidential election) regarding Internet privacy, it’s clear that the use of the internet comes with the sacrifice of user privacy, which violates the human right to privacy.

The internet is almost 30 years old, and in each year of it’s existence it has become better, and more useful. With each iteration of the internet, we have become more dependent on it for economic, social, and cultural interactions. These are all good things. However, all good things come with a cost. And, unfortunately, since those good things include the internet, there is a clear and obvious cost to user privacy.

Privacy is a human right, one we are born with. As internet users, this right to privacy is not a privilege and big businesses like Cambridge Analytica, Facebook, and Google would do well to remember that. This year, specifically, has been a mediocre year for internet privacy, as billions of people on the internet have had their privacy breached by the events such as the Facebook privacy scandals, which involved a company called Cambridge Analytica. This company harvested private information from 50 million users with the permission of Facebook. And, it did so without the knowledge and permission of the users. Regarding the scandal itself, data from 87 million users (3 million European users) was breached in the entire scandal. This recent series of data breaches shows that the necessary human right to privacy has been violated and is still being violated.

The way user privacy gets violated is similar to what modern millennials refer to as “Big Brother.” “Big Brother” is the act of monitoring, recording, and using data to control people's lives. When it comes to the internet, “Big Brother” is the practice of constant surveillance and recording without those users' knowledge or consent, often to make money. Who is "Big Brother" on the internet today? Look to companies such as Google, Twitter, Facebook, for evidence of these privacy invading practices.

So, how is user privacy violated without the knowledge or consent of said users? Well, in Google's case, the user's privacy is violated discretely as they collect personal data on users and use it to get to know what their users are like. Google uses this data for advertisements for users to watch as a way to generate profit. Profit is the general reason why user privacy is violated. This is evident in practices such as data brokering which is done openly by big companies. Even events such as the rejection of net neutrality can be traced back to some of these practices.

In fact some companies that practice data brokering do so on a bigger scale and on a more frequent basis than companies such as Google, Facebook, etc. These companies collect specific data from users such as Identification data, sensitive Identification data, demographic data, legal data, social media data, location (home and neighborhood data), general interest data, financial data, vehicle data, travel data, purchase behavior data, and health data. This just goes to show how user privacy and the human right to privacy is violated. This is mainly for profit; however, this is not just performed on users. It also has an impact on minors, specifically ones in schools.