Digital Footprint

Digital Footprint

1. What is a Digital footprint?

   • A digital footprint is the records and traces you leave behind when you use the internet.
   • Digital footprints are normally used by organizations for commercial purposes so they can market to you, customize to you, and track you.

2. Why did we start leaving such big footprints?

   • Light footprints reveal "smaller bits and anonymous information" which means nothing to a lot of online services.
   • Cookies were made to help make individual transactions more secure
   • Linkability is key in any analysis of online privacy, because it does almost anything to erode a users ability to keep personal data
     • Individual footprints are small but when linked they form a complete profile about the user

3. What is the economic bargain for Internet Users

   • Digital footprints would exist even without commercial needs, but it has capitalized to track users and customize content which is an outgrowth of the basic economic bargain of the internet
   • Users are the products when they don't pay for website, blogs etc.
   • Services are funded by monetizing information about the user and the users interest and preferences
     • The trade of the users "eyes" for their servers, networks, and content is the essential economic bargain underlying most of the internet.

4. Are digital footprints a problem

   • There is a loss of privacy and anonymity, and they can be used to track us
   • individuals interest are potentially put at risk
   • data can be used for malicious purposes, whether financial, criminal, or official

5. Do different devices make different digital footprints

   • they tend to leave different footprints modern smartphones work in ways that create a more intrusive footprint
     • smartphones are generally location aware. services tag your activities to your location
   • Laptops primarily leave footprints via web browser
     • computers have a privacy edge over smartphones, but they won't keep it for long.

6. How can I manage my digital footprints

   • Improve understanding of basic issues, develop "basic hygiene" habits, become a sophisticated user of your online tools and find and use specific privacy enhancing tools.

7. who is tracking me and how do they do it

   • Advertisers, publishers, and data aggregators track users.
     • Advertisers are companies or business who have products to sell, while publishers are companies that publish advertisements, and aggregators collect anonymous data.

8. What Dynamics are at work in the world of digital footprints

   • Cultural dynamic, economic dynamics, and the dynamic of convince
     • cultural dynamic is apart of each country and what they bring to the internet and their rules.
     • the economic dynamic gives a service provider a strong incentive to collect data and keep users informed about the service
     • convince dynamic lulls us into privacy eroding habits.

9. How does legislation affect digital footprints

   • There is no privacy or data protection law that applies everywhere in the world
     • some technology specific laws can genuinely improve the users browsing experience and/or security, however some laws may also have the unintended consequence of shifting the unwanted activity outside the scope of the law.