Invasion of the Privacy Snatchers
Privacy...
Even the notion of it brings up a wistful longing, a "wouldn’t it be nice if..." ache. The concept of controlling your private information harkens back to simpler times.
Privacy is a casualty of modern life - treated as yet another price of progress. Each of us finds frequent, fresh reasons to mourn its loss - as more of our private space is chipped away. On some level we feel violated, while being powerless to slow it down.
One needn’t survive identity theft to be weary of routine assaults upon our individual sense of identity. It’s who we are - after all. Computer technologies driving our world relentlessly chop us into bits and byes of data, that can be stored and analyzed. Then it’s passed along to persons or organizations unknown - to use for "who knows what."
People Jealously Guard their Bit of Remaining Privacy
Fill in this form... supply that personal fact... There’s no way to protect private information from insatiable, ever- expanding databases. Like the Star Trek slogan of the Borg, "Resistance is Futile." All the while, down deep there’s a gnawing suspicion that whatever we reveal will be used against us.
Nowhere is that insecurity clearer than on the Internet, with infinite information passing across millions of websites. How willing are people to tell more than they must about themselves? Not very. Websites that demand more than minimal self-disclosure find a high percentage leave rather than comply.
Reliance on the Internet to Find Information Keeps Growing
Studies report the Web is trusted to provide information needed to make decisions and purchases - second only to spouses. A Harris Interactive consumer survey (2004) found that 73% of adults are now online - 156 million users.That's up from 69% eight months before. Such massive changes in consumer behavior are altering every type of business.It’s a new ball game online.
Life insurance was once sold primarily by career life agents who represented a single insurance company. And a person’s agent knew them personally. Now policies are also sold by direct mail, telephone, and over the Internet - often by people who don’t know you at all.
Although there are numerous websites offering life insurance rate information, they ask visitors to disclosure their personal contact information first. And some are just collecting information to sell to agents. One assumes that requirement serves the sales process, rather than serving the wary customer (who just wants the information, thank you).
Anonymity is a Luxury
Imagine acquiring - continued below ...
