Do not throw your life into the Internet

Protect the things most precious

An Internet user is threatened with numerous dangers resulting from neglects relating to protection of personal data and privacy. The dangers include among others:

- abuse for marketing purposes, consisting in collecting information by marketing companies by means of creating a user profile, shopping-assisting software. (One of the biggest Internet advertising companies – DoubleClick – applied so-called cookies without the knowledge of the users. The company concluded an agreement with 11,000 owners of websites, tracking 100 million users. In 2000 it was revealed that the company has increased its database with the information on user behaviour also outside the Internet). Problem with DoubleClick?

- violation of privacy resulting from non-commercial actions, such as: monitoring of employees and control of citizens by governments of some countries.

- threats resulting from criminal activity, identity theft, property theft, swindles, exploitation – crimes basing on the gullibility of the youngest users of the Internet.

Polish portal komputerswiat.pl announces “7 deadly sins you can commit when surfing the network”. They inculde: 1) Checking password and loging remembering options on public computers; 2) No updating of Windows and other software (including antivirus); 3) Using unsecured wireless networks; 4) Searching illegal and forbiden content; 5) Using online games and p2p networks; 6) Using the same password for all accounts; 7) Incorrect privacy settings in social networks.

How to avoid threats? How to protect our children from them?

From my point of view the key to success is always the proper and early education continued on all school levels, resulting in gaining comprehensive competences with regard to using media.

In Poland there is more and more activity visible from services like helpline.pl. The webservice creates and posts educational animations on the Internet, like: Sieciaki whose purpose is to accustom children and young people to safe and legal behaviour in the Internet. Materials created by the webservice are attractive for the young user, which is enhanced by involvement of celebrities in the project, like: Polish racing driver K. Hołowczyc. The helpline.pl service promotes and encourages children to talk about the threats in the network and offers help in a situation of encountering a hazard.

Intellectual property - helpline.pl

There are many methods of protecting personal data and protecting one’s privacy. I think however, that the best solution is to use personal judgement and a rational justification why we should make a specific thing public. It has been true for ages that sometime it is enough just to think something over to avoid serious consequences of one’s actions.