Privacy is everywhere, one place where privacy is often questioned as being too invasive is in the work place. Employers sometimes take it too far, such as monitoring email mailboxes of the employees and also putting up surveillance cameras in order to record daily routines of employees. A study by Nielsen Media Research found that counted together, IBM, Apple, and At&t employees visited Penthouse

When you are applying for a credit card, filling out a survey, or even entering a contest to win 10,000 dollars you are giving away your privacy. These companies will sell names out to advertising companies all over the country. If you have ever gotten solicitation in the mail being pre-approved credit cards or just magazine subscriptions that you did not order this is most likely because an advertising company got your name from a list. There are many companies that exist on selling names and addresses of people.

There are many ways that people can protect themself from having their name all over the Internet and in the hands of any company that needs to send out fliers. Most of these ways are going to seem silly and impractical to today's modern society because of the convenience that credit cards, online banking, and other similar services offer. Here are a few simple ideas that will help you in beginning the process of privacy. An easy way of keeping telephone marketers away is by having your phone number not published in the phonebook and also having caller identification blocking enabled. These are free options you have with almost all phone companies today. Another good way is to set a number or password on your credit report so that no one can access it without having your prior permission. These are just a few ways of keeping information to yourself however there are lots of tips, both useful and abstract, at this website: http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/donray.htm.

A good example of how a company might get even more personal and financial information is one that is taught to us by Mark Hocchauser Ph.D. Mark wrote an article called, "Why I stopped shopping at Amazon.com." Mark starts off by telling us about Amazon Incorporation and how their service works. Amazon.com focuses on bringing products to consumers at the lowest rates by posting the prices from many fellow companies all linked up to their enormous search engine. In order to purchase something from Amazon.com you must fill out a complete information sheet with all information about yourself, where you live, phone numbers, and even keep a credit card on file with them. Mark goes on to tell us that their policy states that Amazon.com gathers information on a person and creates a profile about them. Once you have logged into the website under your personal username it starts building a profile for you, every search you do is noted by product category and price. After these profiles are created Amazon.com does not say what they do with them. Do not forget this information has everything about you in it now including your likes and dislikes which would allow an advertising company to decide what kind of magazine they should send you. After reading this Mark decided that he needed to cancel his account with Amazon.com and this is where the problems really began. "After surfing the website at Amazon.com for over 3 hours I could not find a single policy or procedure for canceling my account," said Mark (Hocchauser). It was only after Mark e-mailed the helpdesk explaining the situation and the request for canceling

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2103
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)