Aaron Crosby

English 1101
Professor Probst-Martain

A Case of Privacy

In the age of the internet we as a world have become enveloped in the numerous
facets of what the world wide web can offer us. Through exercising the usefulness of the
internet, some controversies arise within its use. Distraction on itself is an issue that
exists with our technological advancements, but something that has become more
concerning than the distraction of the internet is the issue of individual privacy whilst
using something as vast as the internet. One such issue of privacy lay within the story of
Joe Jefferys and his privacy being breached through the website known as Farmers
United, and Mr. Jefferys pursuing a lawsuit that involved the issue of his privacy.
Should Joe Jefferys win? The stance that I take on the issue is a firm, no.
Anyone who uses the internet knows of its vast qualities. From the way we
gather information to the items that we buy, the internet has the capacity to withhold it
all! The main problem that Joe Jeffery faces in his dispute about how private his
information actually is is hidden deep within the terms of service and agreement that
most social networking sites share. With those terms and conditions, it allows any third
party to view information that is willfully given to any social website via search such as
Google for example. It is on this fact that I myself take my stance on Joe Jefferys taking
this issue to court and why he should not win. But it is actually more than this that can
decide his fate amongst a judge and jury.

For a writer like James Gleick, he would support that Joe Jefferys should not win
his case due to a force such as Google impeding on our very existence. According to
James Gleick in his article, How Google Dominates Us, Gleick states that, Googlemonitoring its users behaviors so systematically- had instant knowledge of which ads
were succeeding and which were not. In this, Gleick is stating that it is our behavior
itself that its being monitored and that it needs to be emphasized that just because no
physical person is around to see what information someone may be giving up, it does
not mean that we still arent being watched by someone. Also that due to Google being
such a large company that nearly runs the internet, its users should have some sense of
common knowledge that it is just that easy to find out anything as long as you might
Google it. So under the impression of being part of the global search engine can infact
link Mister Jefferys to whomever may search for someone like him, all of this through
the information that Joe Jefferys willingly put onto the internet. Which supports my
stance on the issue of Joe Jefferys court case, due to the fact that anyone who uses the
internet is apart of the same rules and regulations.
On the contrary side of the argument, writer Nicholas Carr would support that Joe
Jefferys should infact win his case due to the evolution of how we read and think when it
comes to the influence of the internet. Carr states in his article, Is Google Making Us
Stupid?, we may be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or the 1980s, but its
a different kind of reading, and behind it lies a different way of thinking. Carrs claim of
the change in the way we read and think due to technology rests on the assumption that
we cannot control how we think or act through the adaptation of these technological
forces in our society; that we have no free will.

Compared to a more so neutral viewpoint of writer Adam Gopnik, Gopnik points

out in his article, How The Internet Gets Inside Us, the printing press rapidly gave
birth to a new order of information. In which Gopnik makes mention of the innovation of
the printing press, and it was through the printing press that brought information to a
whole new audience. This invention made it possible to produce text at a new level
unseen before such an invention. Through the innovation of the printing press,
educators were able to distribute text to a wider audience, news organizations were
able to distribute papers to a wider audience. The audience for news and information
grew widely. The internet has become a modern day printing press, bringing news and
information to an exponential scale. Information as mundane as Joe Jefferys becomes
public knowledge.
Through the service of the World Wide Web, information becomes crystal clear
and one of the easiest things to access thanks to the innovation of mankinds
technological advancements. In the case of Joe Jefferys, he was just another player in
the game of the internet. Nothing that anyone who uses the internet can avoid. From my
stance on the argument of him winning a court case regarding his privacy, I feel that he
should not win based simply on what Jefferys agreed to, but other support in his loss
comes from the common knowledge of the power of the internet and its overall
commercial use, along with human willingness.
WORK CITED

Carr, Nicholas. Is Google Making Us Stupid? The Atlantic: n.p. July/August. 2008.
Web. 3 May 2016.

Gleick, James. How Google Dominates Us. The New York Review Of Books: n.p. 18
August 2011. Web. 3 May 2016.

Gopnik, Adam. How The Internet Gets Inside Us. The New Yorker: n.p. 14 & 21
February 2011. Web. 3 May 2016.

Aaron Crosby
English 1101
Probst-Martain

Self Review / Compare review essay 4

1. The stance that i take on the issue is a firm, no. Very arguable and couldnt be any
more clear.
2. I talk about my stance throughout my paper.

3. I talk about Joes issue in the first body paragraph, explaining his issue of privacy.
4. Ethos lay within my use of sources to help guide my stance.
5. Not too sure about fallacies that i can spot. Cant really say im super knowledgable
about common fallacies.
6. In bodies 2,3, and 4 i use my sources to guide each paragraph.
7. In the third body paragraph i use one of my sources to aid in the counter argument .
8. Im happy with my structure.
9. Overall i felt pretty confident in my argument.