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May 16th, 2016 
Awake Goy
Susanne Posel ,Chief Editor Occupy Corporatism | Media Spokesperson, HEALTH MAX Brands
Researchers from Aarhus University released personal data on an estimated 70,000 OkCupid users without trying to make these users anonymous because the “data [was] already public”.
The paper’s authors emphasize that this “gathering and releasing of data” is not a revelation of private information because “all the data found in the dataset are or were already publicly available”.
Public apprehension toward user data can be traced back to 2014 when OkCupid was caught caught conducting a little experiment on their users without telling them.
OkCupid admitted that they spent 3 years lying to their users about matching compatibility and monitored “online daters’ behavior” to see what would happen.
The dating site became a laboratory wherein questions were asked such as: What would happen if incompatible people were matched-up and used their “matching algorithms” to simply put people together whether they would be a good match or not?
Now as it was then, users are not splitting hairs over whether or not public information automatically equals consent – because in the mind of the user it does not.
Of course OKCupid users “have the option to restrict the visibility of their profiles to logged-in users only”, but when a person signs up for a dating website, they are not intentionally making their personal data “publicly viewable” even though it is.
For this study, the authors have been asked by media outlets about their huge data-dump, and have responded with dismissive comments such as not wanting “to fan the flames on the social justice warriors”.
And whether or not these claims are true, studies like this highlight the fact that Americans have begun to change their view of the internet.
In fact, 1 in 2 internet users have stopped performing basic functions online because of fears that the government is watching them.
According to a survey conducted by the US Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), “billions of people around the world use the Internet to share ideas, conduct financial transactions, and keep in touch with family, friends, and colleagues, but for the Internet to grow and thrive, users must continue to trust that their personal information will be secure and their privacy protected.”
Shocking as it may be but people are not engaging the internet as they used to. Posting to social media, making online purchases and partaking of opinion forums are becoming pastimes nearly forgotten because “some consumers are reaching a tipping point where they feel they can no longer trust using the Internet for everyday activities.”
Twenty percent of the respondents said they have been the victims of identity theft and 45% said their fears about “online privacy and security” has prevented them from “using the Web in very practical ways”.
And while 50% of respondents had experienced credit card fraud, nearly 1 in 5 confirmed that the governmental spying is worse than data-mining criminals.
This research compliments a 2015 Pew Research Center survey that showed “people overwhelmingly want to control their digital data, but [have] little confidence that information could stay protected.”
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