Privacy & Confidentiality

The Internet was invented fifty years ago as Department of Defense project used for military purposes. In 2010, the Internet has become part of civilian life in the way radios, televisions, and newspapers have, except in such a profound that it can encompass its predecessors and then some. What isn't new is the trade-off between free speech and privacy. The FCC was created in response to the invention of the radio and the mass demand for it in every home. Since then, the FCC has been the government's enforcement into radio, television, printed media, and in very scant cases (thankfully) the Internet. It is only because of the ubiquity and accessibility of the Internet that the FCC or any other government agency has a significant presence. That doesn't make the Internet perfect, especially in terms of discerning what you say or do on the Internet. Discussing privacy and confidentiality on the Internet is like discussing what color the curtains should be for your bathtub that's placed outside on your front lawn. The use of "new media" for its intended purpose sort of defeats the purpose of having comfortable privacy/confidentiality policies. In other words, there is an inverse relationship between free speech and privacy on the Internet. The relationship is not completely set on a zero-sum scale. A competent webmaster can view the IP addresses of any visitor or commenter on his/her site and find out valuable and personal information (e.g. what Internet Service Provider they have, which house they live in within a half-block radius). This is a justified perk to have in case the website gets hacked or suffers a "Denial of Service" attack. On the flipside, very few new media websites (which include Wikipedia and other wikis) show personal information automatically for the sake of identity and security. The user has the ultimate liability when it comes to the case of their cybersafety. Just like free speech and privacy in America, it is protected respectively under certain circumstances. You can't expect protection from someone taking a picture of you in public unless the photographer plans to profit from it, nor can you explicitly express desiring to harm someone and consider that constitutionally sound.