Online Social Networks And E-Commerce

Online service providers, such as Facebook and Amazon, are beginning to collect various kinds of public and private data across the Web for the purposes of targeted marketing. A vast variety of data is collected about the user, and the current legal system has different legal standards for different kinds of data. This is problematic because the privacy policies against government and third-party intrusions are complex and confusing to the end user. To better protect consumers' privacy, all aggregated user data and online activities should be subjected to the same level of protection under a blanket privacy policy. Furthermore, the authors are proposing an accountability infrastructure for protecting consumer's online privacy.