HBCU Writers's Project
For Immediate Release
January 24, 2011
Contact Information

Angelica Washington
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University

(BPRW) No Privacy Online

(BLACK PR WIRE/FAMU-TALLAHASSEE) – People are giving away their information online, voluntarily and involuntarily. Individuals who use search engines like Google and Yahoo! are telling these websites what they like.

This has become such a major issue that the online privacy group, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Google’s computing services. “It’s really none of their business,” Troy Wright, a senior at Florida A&M University said. “What I do, who I email, what I research, it’s my business.”

Students are starting to have major concerns about online privacy. Since registration for classes, official transcripts and viable personal information like social security and credit card numbers are online, it makes some students think twice about how much they do online.

“I know there is no other way for me to get things done, but if there is, I definitely need to find it,” Sheila Cost, a senior at Georgia Southern University said. Cost believes that keyloggers, a software that stores information about how one accesses and interacts with a website, is an unethical and invalid way of finding out what people like. “I understand that they want to know what I like, but I’d prefer to just fill out an online survey. I mean, just because they have me researching dogs doesn’t mean I like dogs, I could be looking at it for class.”