Digital Footprint

Digital Footprint

1. What is A Digital Footprint?

   • Digital footprints are the records and traces we leave behind us as we use the internet.
   • Digital footprints has both benefits an cost
   • Our digital footprints is used for commercial purposes. It tracks you, customize for you, and market to you.

2. Why did we start leaving such big footprints?

   • Each time you visit a website you reveal some information about yourself to the owner of the website
   • A cookie is one way of tying multiple actions by a single user into one connected stream. A cookie is an arbitrary string of letters and digits that web site sends to your web browser.
   • Digital footprints should be a significant privacy concern for internet users, since they can be used to track users actions and are a basis for profiling by online service providers and others.

3. What is the economic bargain for internet users?

   • Because most of the infrastructure of the internet is funded by marketing in some form, publishers and marketers exploit digital footprints to target their products at the most appropriate audience.
   • Advertiser and marketers Observe, Link, and Mine Data about their Internet users
   • The Internet offers both opportunities and challenges. For opportunities is Cheap, direct access to receptive consumers. For challenges it is Hard to sort the receptive consumers.

4. Are Digital Footprints a Problem?

   • One effect of digital footprint is lost of privacy.
   • Digital footprints can show IP Addresses, Phone numbers, Online activities, E-commerce
   • The government is able to analyze huge amounts of data from our footprints and link it across multiple contexts.

5. Do different devices make different digital footprints?

   • Smartphones and tablets tend to leave very different footprint from laptops and desktop computes.
   • Modern smartphones work in a way that create a more intrusive footprint. Intrusive means it causes more disruption or annoyance.
   • Apps connect to Internet services directly using specific interfaces.

6. How can I manage my Digital Footprints

   • There are four levels at which you can choose to manage and control your digital footprints.
   • 1.Improve your understanding of the basic issues. 2. Develop your basic hygiene habits 3. Become a sophisticated user of your online tools and services. 4. Find and use specific privacy-enhancing tools.
   • Make sure to understand the realities of data sharing.

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

   • There are three themes: Cultural, Economic, and Convenience.
   • The economic dynamic gives service provider a strong incentive to collect data, and to keep users under-informed about that aspect of the service
   • Each country brings to the internet its own cultural norm, legislative and regulatory models, and economic frameworks

8. Who is tracking me and how do they do it?

   • People that track you use advertisers, publishers, and aggregators
   • The advertisers are companies that have products or services to sell and therefore they market them.
   • Data aggregators collect anonymous data from their partners and use it to target ads.

9. How does legislation affect digital footprints?

   • Online personal data includes: Credit card numbers, college, school, email, address, office, age, sex, marital status, etc.
   • Pros of Technology- specific laws is to improve the users' browsing experience.
   • The Con of Technology- specific laws is to give service providers an incentive to look for unregulated means to monitors or profile users.