Last Sunday, I woke up to a call from my mom telling me that my bank account had been drained by someone who hacked into my Etsy account. 

I promptly contacted my bank and Etsy to report and resolve this issue, but the breech of my private information didn’t stop there. Days later, my Spotify account was hacked right before my eyes as I watched someone listen to music on my account from somewhere else in the world. 

For the last week, I have been changing every password to every account I have and adding additional security features to my logins. If you’ve never been hacked before, it makes you feel so vulnerable. And if you didn’t care about online privacy before, you certainly will after. 

Online privacy isn’t a new issue, but it has been a topic in the news over the years with various security breaches and stolen user data; however, these aren’t the only issues. Providers are also collecting our information on the web via cookies and using it to make money from third-parties who use this info to personalize ads, target specific consumers, or even for more sinister motives.

Service providers have been called on once again to address these issues, and they are answering with innovative ways to protect our information and give us more control when using their platforms.

Google wants to do this by using, “cryptographic tokens users can amass showing they are trustworthy, using artificial intelligence to show people relevant ads based on minimal information, and storing personally-identifiable data on someone’s device rather than in their browser”.

Other platforms weighed in on this topic on Twitter and expressed their own views on privacy protection online.

Apple states that they will increase privacy by always asking a user’s informed consent before using their information, and they will treat all attempts to take user information without this consent as seriously as a breach of user information. 

Facebook is taking a reversed approach, where they introduced Off-Facebook Activity to their users. This feature allows users to view a list of all of the apps and websites that send Facebook information about their online habits and allows them to clear this information from their account.

With a renewed emphasis on privacy, control, and transparency, our favorite sites seem to be working hard on a solution to the mistrust beginning to form between them and their users. But will we ever have full privacy back within our internet crazed society?

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