Internet Privacy in Online Communities

http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol9/issue4/metzger.html

This is an article written by Mirriam J.  Metzger from the University of California, Santa Barbara.  She asserts that one of the biggest barriers to the success of online commerce is the fact that many consumers are reluctant to give out their personal information online. 

While I agree that it is difficult to give out personal information online, there are so many other ways to have your information stolen.  I think that if you are careful to use only reputable sites giving out your information is not that unsafe.

http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Kids%2C+the+Internet%2C+and+the+End+of+Privacy%3A+The+Greatest+Generation+Gap+Since+Rock+and+Roll+–+New+York+Magazine&expire=&urlID=21073023&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnymag.com%2Fnews%2Ffeatures%2F27341%2F&partnerID=73272

This is an article from New York Magazine about what young adults and kids feel comfortable publishing on the internet, while adults are cringing about what the younger generations are putting out there.  According to the article it seems that anything goes. 

My daughter is getting married in 138 days, 8 hrs, 6 min, and 24 seconds!  We are so busy with preperations.  She is getting married back home in Florida.  She is not  getting married on the beach, but the reception is on the beach at the Radisson.  The wedding pictures of her in the gorgeous dress we picked out are going to be so beautiful on the beach at sunset.  And, she and her fiance are best friends – which will make for a great marriage.  I am so proud of her!

http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol9/issue4/metzger.html

This article includes a study done on communication students at a west coast university.  The students were asked about how comfortable they were with giving 23 pieces of personal information at an online site.   The students thought questions about their financial information were very private, but things like their first name and sex were not. 

It is an interesting study about how people feel about putting their information online. 

Ruckus and i-tunes both have social networking communities, but they are vastly different.  On Ruckus you can create a myspace type of account and socialize with people in categories such as:  what college they go to and what music they like.  On i-tunes the socialization I found was the ability to rate a certain album or song, and the fact that  you can add your i-tunes playlist to your blog or website.  They each have an intrinsic value unto themselves.

 Oh, and just a note:  i-tunes costs $0.99 cents a song while songs on Ruckus are free with your tech e-mail account.

I found it disconcerting that I could change the comment that was posted on my blog.  It was a very nice comment, and I would not want to change it, but I could have.  You would think that if it has her name and her web address on it one could not change it.  Wondering why it works that way?

Again, thanks to Mr. O’Connell for the Tech IT flyer he gave me.  I found a small blurb on it entitled, “Illegal music downloading.”  I figured it would be all about how we shouldn’t download free music because it was illegal.  But, surprisingly, it was about how to download free and legal music.  The site is: http://www.ttu.edu/legalmusic/.

I decided it was worth a shot.  I logged onto Ruckus, the company Tech partnered with to get us free music.  It took me about 5 minutes to create an account, get my confirmation e-mail, download and install the program and restart my computer. 

One of the big selling points for me is that it doesn’t download anything bad at the time time it is downloading the music.  I’ve had this problem when my son has downloaded music and have had to ban him from a few sites that I could not trust. 

To search for music I decided to try Josh Groban and was surprised to find his new album.  There are over 2 million tracks and all kinds of music you can download to your computer.  You would have to pay $15 (this covers the rest of the semester)to download it to your i-pod.

And Ruckus also has an on-line community.  I browsed through a few people, and realized this may not be one of the more private sites.  For one community member, Scott, it had his gender, his graduation year and his school e-mail address.  These are all things you must supply when you sign up for this site.  It also had a place for lots of other things, but you have to put that in yourself.  It did show his recently played and most played songs.

The really annoying part of this site is:  Ruckus tv.  In addition to commercials being displayed on the site, it plays a loop of “tv” commercials while you download your music.  It was easy enough to shut off, though, by just muting it.

Final thought?  If you don’t want your tech e-mail address out there for anybody to see, don’t sign up for this site.  If you do want to find college friends who share the same taste in music, and you don’t mind your Tech e-mail being out there, this is a good site for you.

A couple of days ago Mr. O’Connell received a flyer from the Tech IT division, and was nice enough to forward it to me.  I thought it would be all technical stuff, but it turns out the flyer broke down technical stuff so that anyone can understand it.   I visited their website:  http://safecomputing.ttu.edu/ttu/events and found it to be really interesting too.  They have such things as “safe blogging,” basic computing safety practices, and a host of other things that are good for a computer user to know and implement. 

They also had an article about getting spy-ware and other bad things off of your computer.  I reasoned that it would be worth my time to run a spy-ware detection program and pass that information along, but was just sure they wouldn’t find any because I have Norton Anti-Virus.  Norton has a spy-ware function on it and I run that every week when I run the anti-virus part of the program.  I didn’t have anything to worry about.  How wrong I was! 

The anti-spy-ware program found 8 spy-ware programs on my computer.  These threats ranged from high risk to low risk, but I didn’t care what the risk was I wanted them off of my computer. Most of them were ad-ware programs that  attach themselves to legitimate programs and then hide on your computer to send personal information back to their owner. 

 I got them off my computer, but now I am feeling uncomfortable at the ease of which these programs installed themselves on my computer, and how hard will it be for them to do it again?  I guess I’ll have to visit that Tech site regularly and run their spy-ware detector program more often. 

Also worthwhile was a column on the flyer about personal web spaces and blogging.  This is their recommendation:

• Be as anonymous as possible;
• Protect your profile information;
• Carefully monitor your contact list;
• Scrutinize third party information sharing;
• Avoid in-person meetings;
• Be aware:  potential employers search; and
• Think before posting photos. 

I have noticed that when I go to a fellow student’s blog their name is not on the blog anywhere that I can find.  So, I thought I would introduce myself: My name is Debra Chapman, I am a junior majoring in Journalism, specifically news-editorial.  I am really loving this class and am glad I decided to take it. 

on-line-communities-in-class-discussion.doc

 The attachment is the report I gave on the traveller’s website.  I found the site very interesting and a great community even if you are just thinking about traveling and want to learn more about your dream destination.  Even if your destination is a small island you will probably find something about it on this site from people who have been there and can give you some pointers about what to do and what not to do.