The Internet has been growing at a very fast pace over the last decade. With this continued growth in the future, more people will access the Internet. If more people are accessing the Internet, then who will govern the data that is transferred to the user community? This is a question that has been asked to government officials as the Internet has been growing. Internet privacy issues have been the forefront of the technology news for a long time. Individuals are asking how the privacy of Internet users should be handled as we move into a new Internet world era. This paper will discuss some of the Internet privacy issues that communities across the United States are facing today. These issues concern minors in schools and libraries viewing sexually explicit material, and also the individuals working at home on personal computers wondering who is watching their movements on the Internet.
Internet Privacy Laws.
Internet privacy laws have been passed to protect different groups in different ways. One such privacy law was passed in 1996 called the Communications Decency Act (Tulsa, 2002). According to an article called Free speech, and safe children, "The act made it a federal crime to send obscene or indecent messages over the Internet to anyone under the age of 18 or to post sexually explicit material that could be viewed by anyone under 18" (Tulsa, 2002). This is an example of federal and state law trying to propose Internet privacy laws to protect minors in sexually explicit material. This has been a growing concern for many activist groups who oppose the use of the Internet as a tool to promote child porn or communication to children under the age of 18. Most people see this issue flashed over the nightly news at least once every two weeks. This growing Internet concern is hard to track and stop since the communication lines over the information highway are endless and hard to regulate.
