Privacy

  Be Safe!

Figure 1: Online Game

Everyone should enjoy online games like Wizard 101, Habbo, Club Penguin, and even more (See Figure 1)!Online games are for anyone, they allow for people all over the world to play with each other through a fun game scenario. These games give everyone great opportunities to participate in learning, social interaction, creativity, and self-expression (1). But to play these games, you need to make your own private account so you can have your own personal character and items.     

 

Privacy is very important when playing an online game. The definition of privacy is "That the individual shall have full protection in person and in property" (2). Which means you should have and keep protection of your personal things and identities because they are yours and nobody else's. When you make an account for one of your favorite online games, that's now your thing or identity. Concluding that you should keep it to yourself. But why would someone try to invade your privacy and take your account? While playing, you can achieve goals, ranks, or more through playing as an fictional character. And some people may envy and want to take your account or identity for themselves because of the achievements and earnings. They could also want to take advantage of your account for other reasons. But people put a lot of time, money and effort into the overall game. Mainly, you are the one keeping you account safe.                   

 

Figure 2: Gift card for points

During the online game, earning the game points can become challenging. So the game producers or owners sell gift cards that have a code on them for you can redeem game points or credit for the game (See figure 2). Not only can you redeem money through the game, you can also redeem places or items that are extremely rare or hard to achieve. So if you're someone who puts actually money into the game, your privacy is extremely important because you're investing money into it. By someone gaining information to an account with money involved, is a person with malicious intentions (3). You or someone worked hard for that money, now someone is invading your privacy and stealing from you!

 

 

 

Figure 3: Mission to achieve a goal

Through out the game, you're constantly trying to achieve goals through completing missions (See figure 3). These goals become really important to a person because they are very time consuming. After some one puts a great amount of time into something, it becomes very valuable to them like for example the goals and achievements of the game. Now if someone was to get into another persons account who has put a lot of work and time into, this could emotional hurt a person (3).


 

Now in order for you to keep the account that you put money, time and work into, you need to keep your information to yourself. The information includes password, email account, and private information about yourself. People who are trying to steal or take advantage of your account usually try to trick you into giving up you personal information. These people tell you that they can help you complete goals or give you more online points. But these are false statements and these kind of people are just trying to take advantage of your trusting personality to steal your account or online money.

As you can see, privacy is a big deal and everyone should understand the importance of keeping it safe. Not only is privacy critical for an online game account, its also needed for every aspect of your daily life (2). Privacy is important for paying for things, having your own identity, and keeping your life to yourself. The tactics of keeping your online account privacy safe can also be used in the real world. So always remember to keep personal information and passwords to yourself for no one can ever take away your privacy!

References:

Mission to achieve a goal [Illustration]. (2010). Retrieved from World Press website: https://caity12.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/cart-surfer-black-puffle.png

Gift card for points [Illustration]. (2013). Retrieved from Social Media website: http://socialmediadna.nl/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/21240-habbo-habbo-hotel1.png

Online Game [Illustration]. (2011). Retrieved from Dotmmo website: http://www.dotmmo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Wizard-101-logo-390x248.jpg

 

1. Mathiesin, K. (2013).  The Internet, children, and privacy: the case against parental monitoring. Ethics Inf Technol, 15, 263-274. doi: 10.1007/s10676-013-9323-4

2. Willies, J., Millar, Taylor, & Burr. (1890) The right to privacy. Harvard Law Review, 4, 193-220. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/

 

3. McFarland, M. (2012) Why we care about privacy. Santa Clara University. Retrieved from:  http://www.scu.edu/