Opt me out of Internet exploitation

After months of denying YouTube access to my real name, I finally gave in.

I have a Google email and a Google+ account, but hesitated to incorporate them into my YouTube account.

But YouTube berated me like an overzealous mother, telling me how fun it will be to have my real name show up beside everything I do.

I gave in, and with that came a realization: we are slowly losing our anonymity online.

Our name and picture are being used across multiple channels now, sometimes without our full permission.

Google is facing a slew of protests from the few people who use Google+ in response to Google’s plans to put your face and name in sponsored ads.

A change in privacy terms clearly stated this, allowing users to opt-out anytime they wanted.

Herein lies the problem.

Opting out should not be the standard, but rather opting in should be the norm.

If users want their review of a pair of socks from Wal-Mart to show up so everyone can see, more power to them.

But this should not be something people are automatically forced into.

Our entire opt-in culture has reached a startling point.

In 2010, a gaming website in the United Kingdom included a clause in their terms and conditions claiming the right to their shoppers’ souls.

They rounded up 7,500 souls.

Although just a joke, it proves a point.

We are all willing to leisurely hit “accept” on the terms and conditions, much to the detriment of our online individuality.

Companies are using this to exploit us, admitting policies into their terms and conditions they know users do not want.

This leads to our names being more publicly displayed than ever online.

Some websites have their comments sections integrated with Facebook, providing a whole mess of problems.

With Facebook privacy policies vague and confusing, I’m scared of posting any comment.

We’ve all seen our aunt post something on Facebook we know she didn’t know was going on her timeline.

With the growing number of middle-age people joining Facebook, clarity in privacy policies is important now more than ever.

I think I have most everything on my profile set on private, but I really don’t know.

When I accepted Facebook’s terms and conditions, I might have unknowingly agreed to let them see the ideas inside of my head for the rest of my life.

People might say, “I don’t have anything to hide. It’s okay if everyone on the Internet sees what I do.”

Though I don’t have anything I’m explicitly trying to cover up, I would rather have my grandma not see that I just reviewed a 2 Chainz album.

I would rather have my professor not know I reviewed his book on Amazon, calling it complete garbage.

Advocating the use of real names integrated across multiple platforms online sparks a bit of honesty into the Internet, but the loss of individuality and anonymity that occurs is devastating.

We used to be only an IP Address, but now we are a collection of names, addresses and interests, making terms and conditions policies more intrusive and irresponsible than ever.

— lewicole@indiana.edu
Follow columnist Cole Lewis on Twitter @ColeThenLewis