Navigating in Internet

Abstract

The chapter faces a series of questions that the digital era raises as far as the protection of privacy is concerned. Technology and specifically internet, apart from posing innovative, complex threats to the autonomy and privacy of the individual constructs a new frame for approaching privacy. The technological texture of the internet calls for a new conception of privacy that can be adopted in those circumstances, such as anonymity. The chapter argues that though anonymity cannot be identified with the right to privacy, represents in fact one of its key functions, its ability as a negative freedom to shield the autonomy of the individual against all kind of threats. Thus, anonymity can foster communication, speech and political expression in the internet. Nevertheless, the cost of protecting privacy as anonymity is substantial since its neutral character can function as a veil for sinister actions such as libel, hate-speech and stalking in cyberspace. The need for ‘reconceptualizing’ privacy in the internet, for the writers confirms the evolving, developing character of the right, whose substantial content is not given or static but is closely connected and constructed via societal change. The chapter explores the technological threats that the right to privacy confronts in the internet, such as “cookies”, “spam messages”, the dangers they pose to the freedom and autonomy of the individual as well as the positive dimensions of the internet, especially its role in democratic accountability and political dialogue. Concluding the writers present three architectures for the protection of privacy in the internet: (a) a model based on informational law, (b) a market based solution, where privacy is understood in contractual terms and (c) a model based on the participation of the users in the uses of their personal information as well as to the enforcement of the accountability of the internet actors, e.g. corporations, advertising agencies.