Personal Privacy

In the face-to-face environment, we take for granted that we can control our “privacy settings.” That is, if we don’t wish for someone to read what we are writing, we may slant the computer screen, or cover the paper on which we write. If we don’t wish to be widely heard, we might whisper.

On the Internet, there is no such thing as a whisper. In fact, we are living in an age of broad monitoring. Call it surveillance society, or voyeurism, or cyber eavesdropping, we are aware of the watching, and of being watched.