The world moves swiftly ahead on the digital platform. The Internet is a place for disseminating information and browsing alone. The screen between publically available information and private data is not, however, as opaque as users might expect. Under current U.S. law, online businesses can track private users without their being aware of the extent to which websites monitor conduct, aggregate it with other personal details, create marketing profiles, and sell the cumulative character sketches to third parties. The concept of informed consent is often misleading on websites with policies that are written for lawyers and difficult to understand by ordinary Internet users. Even when web-based shoppers permit corporate use of their information, they have a very limited ability to ascertain how the businesses will trade, manipulate, and bundle personal data. Consumers and researchers are often at the mercy of technology they only partially understand, with little they can do to prevent third parties from acquiring and then using sophisticated algorithms to connect details about their online habits with personal—and sometimes embarrassing—information on family, health, and relationship histories.
