We concern ourselves with protection of personal information from the potential danger  brought on by phishing scams, viruses Trojans, disingenuous websites and organizations who are careless in their treatment of personal information provided to them.  This continues to be a topic which should be at the forefront of your use of on-line services but the concerns of how the Social Media giants and web-based organizations which we knowingly provide information to, and knowingly correspond through are, in many more important to focus on than the traditional bad guys.  We put our trust in these organizations and we should expect that the good faith and fair character of these businesses and Social Media affiliates respect our privacy.  This should not boil down to a game of semantics where by the information we intended to be used in one way is expressly or indirectly used in a way we did not agree to. It is not enough to comply by omission of true purpose when stating that the baseline terms and conditions end users agreed upon were met.  This is simply not reasonable and organizations which are far reaching enough to collect data about individuals using the web which may not even have a direct membership can collect data though individuals and sources related to an individual to breach that trust much less the trust of the direct end user. This should be common sense and the exploitation of our personal information should not be accepted simply because the ability to collect data has reached this critical mass.

As technology moves forward and artificial intelligence algorithms make it possible to create a digital profile of individuals without any consent or knowledge of the practice, it becomes more important to understand that this is not okay.  We all have far more to lose than we gain by allowing this practice to grow.  Protect yourself and those you interanct with online. Lock down and  test your privacy settings.