April Non-Fiction

I read the article “When your Data Wanders to Places you’ve Never Been” by Natasha Singer who wants the reader to know that a friend of hers was researching Multiple Sclerosis, and companies profiled her as an M.S. patient. Senator John D. Rockefeller does not think that it is okay for companies to use people’s private information. Do Not Track, an organization to prevent the tracking of people’s internet usage by companies, has not been helping as much as it was supposed to. Singer, by tracking the information of her friend, found that companies have used much of her information for consumer purposes as well as most other adults in the United States. Natasha Singer proves her main idea by saying that “In our data-happy society, the case of the mistaken M.S. patient illustrates a lack of visibility for people interested in how information about them changes hands.” She connects the example of her friend to average Americans who may also come across this problem with their private information. She also talks a lot about the opinion of John D. Rockefeller who says that “’People have the right to be private insofar as it’s possible in the modern world.’” He believes that people should be able to keep their information private, especially in this technology-crazed world.

The author, Natasha Singer, hopes that the reader will recognize that internet information usage is a major issue as technology expands. She wants readers also to be more concerned about their internet whereabouts and be careful about what they research and post on social networking sites. She convinces readers of this problem when she says that “data brokers can go in and buy all your health records, your financial records,” basically she is saying that people unknown to us take private information and use it for many purposes, and these people are often from companies that the target has never heard of or interacted with. Singer also says about her friend that “now she wondered whether one of those companies had erroneously profiled her as an M.S. patient and shared that profile with drug-company marketers.” She says that her friend was worried that this false information could cause companies to not allow her to get insurance. Natasha singer uses her friend as an average example of someone who could be harmed by companies tracking the internet to convince the reader how dangerous this is.

I think that this article is very important to teenagers because they do not always know what could occur with their Facebook messages or other social networking sites. It can affect them in ways that they would never think. This article makes me want a Facebook even less that I already do. I want to know about how businesses are able to take people's data and if they are really allowed to do that. In my opinion, people are putting their information online, which they wouldn't be if they were really worried about the wrong people taking their information like I am. In seventh grade, a teacher told me that colleges look students up online and may not accept people with irresponsible things up on the internet. I really liked the article, and with this new technological world, this information can help people to protect themselves and their information.