The United States government has proposed new laws designed to protect the online privacy of internet users. SNOPA, the Social Networking Online Protection Act, was created to prevent employers from requesting usernames and passwords from current employees, or prospective ones. This applies to social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, and also protects email and any other user generated content. Unfortunately, there have been several instances of such demands, and the implications on personal privacy are problematic.
Currently Internet users have few legal protections to their privacy. To make matters worse, it’s difficult to distinguish between what is considered private data and what is public. Because of this, many people are being required to hand over their private usernames and passwords in order to be considered for a job. This puts people in a tough situation, where they must choose between their job and their privacy, and it’s not how things should be in a free society.
When there are no laws preventing employers from requesting private login information, employers will continue to keep pushing. What do you guys think? Should the Federal government create laws to protect people’s private information? Is a law like this needed?
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Here’s a list of the top 25 websites online, ranked by the total number of inbound links. As you might expect, Facebook.com comes in at #1. These sites have more links pointing back to them than any other sites on the internet. If this isn’t an indicator of quality, I don’t know what is.
