Privacy? What privacy?

Ive been working on a paper on Internet privacy for one of my classes. What Ive found is that there is no such thing as Internet privacy. Frankly, that shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone and it wasn't a surprise to me either. What was a surprise though was the extent to which Internet privacy is lacking. By lacking I mean close to non existent.

There are companies not only tracking, but gathering information about us. We are being watched, our search habits tracked and then being attacked by companies wanting to sell their products. A marketing technique that is being used more and more. Juvenile convicts who can legally request the courts to purge their records after some time are finding that people have got hold of their records and are selling it for profit, effectively negating the purpose behind purging their records.

It gets worse. Yahoo has already handed over search records to the government and Google has been requested to do so too. Uncle Sam is watching emails for specific words and listening in on phone calls. This invasion of privacy and the lack of legislation to stop it has evolved into microtargetting, and there seems to be no end in sight.

The potential this has to get blown out of control (if it already isn't) is huge. Anonymity of bloggers could be blown, individuals living non mainstream lifestyles could be exposed to discrimination, and what happens to the freedom of speech that is such a big part of America?

The extent of this invasion of privacy is scary and the only thing giving me comfort is the lobbyists who are working with government representatives to do something about it. I'm finding that the land of the free is not that free after all. Some one is always watching, and some one always knows.