Sunday 23 September 2012

Privacy Breaches and Corporate Espionage


Social Media provides the opportunity for individuals, corporations or governments to look at users' profiles and acquire information about them. In some cases, this can lead to breaching users' privacy.

This impacts society in many different ways.

An example of this can be seen in the recent increase of job hunters being stalked on social networks.
Social networks allow users to post photos, interests, opinions among numerous other things.

It is in no-way appropriate for employers to "Facebook stalk" potential new employees and peek on their private life. Let alone make a decision on whether to employ a person or not, based on their private life outings or interests.

Unfortunately this breach of privacy doesn't end when you land the job.

A specific example can be seen in India, where a survey shows "over 35 per cent of companies are engaged in corporate espionage to gain advantage over their competitors and are even spying on their employees via social networking"


Companies are spying on society via social media to gather more and more information about us, and gain tiny advantages over their competitors. Without realizing, users of social media display information showing preferences, opinions, interests and dislikes or even more specific information, like the time they do their weekly shopping or eat their dinner.

This can be vital information for corporations, but we shouldn't have to tolerate with their constant observation.





5 comments:

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  2. There was news in China about parents posting their children's photos and informations on their personal page, similar with twitter, and somehow caused their kids being kidnapped. This topic is a good choice!

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