I've always been a social person, and quite often, my friends joke about how I know too many people for my own good. But even for an extroverted person like me, it came as quite a shock when someone I've never seen or heard of before, came up to me at a mall one day and addressed me by my first name, knew where I was from and which university I attend. Needless to say, I was shocked! When I asked him, "Do I know you?", he replied instantly - "Oh no! I don't think so. You're friends with my cousin, I think. Random Facebook stalking, ha ha!" At that point, I didn't know how to react. And here I was, assuming that my Facebook privacy settings are as stringent as possible, while a complete stranger has information about me, that even other acquaintances of mine don't.

The birth of social media and networking has definitely revolutionized the idea of human interaction, but at what cost? While advancements in technology must be embraced, compromising on basic human ideals like Privacy is unacceptable. Having the choice to share information with selective people is something everyone has in the real world, and the virtual world has no reason to be any different. Technology has always tried to make things easier, but when it comes to protecting our information and exercising control over our own privacy, we are required to go to great lengths to personally customize my settings and read the various fine prints and still, the content isn't entirely safe and we are left constantly worrying about how the information may be misused.

It is ridiculous to claim that enhanced privacy settings are difficult to be built-in to the websites and that they take a lot more effort and resources with regards to the technical aspects. The same technology seems to be good enough to analyze a person's interests and likings based on his/her posts and statuses and other activities and thus available for sale to various advertisers. Hence, not only is my privacy compromised, but I am also subjected to the commercial interests of someone else. Not only unethical but it also borders on being un-lawful. Such advancements in technology can surely aid in building social networking platforms which serve the purpose they were initially made for without caveats as vital as loss of privacy and security.

The lack of such stringent privacy settings has also directly or indirectly aided in building the phenomenon of Web Personalization. While many people think it is 'cool' and laud technology for making this possible, the flip side of it is often neglected. All the advertisements, the suggested articles and recommended videos are generated by algorithms that filter content and ultimately decide what we are supposed to see. This can be particularly problematic because we are pushed into an isolated bubble with regards to the type of information we get and we fail to receive the millions of other points of views and information from diverse areas of interest that the Internet actually has to offer. While some amount of personalization is welcome, since we humans can't manually sort all the information ourselves, the current scenario forces only certain kinds of content on us, based on our previous activities. It must be remembered here, that our previous activities don't define our entire range of interests. For instance, because I 'liked' a page about fashion, it doesn't necessarily mean that my interests in fields like politics or sports are non-existent, but I will end up being isolated from my other interests because all that I receive are prompts about fashion. And all of this is ultimately possible because of the massive database of personal information that big companies are able to 'buy', thanks to lax privacy control measures.

So if we look at the bigger picture, not only is the information we send out reaching people it isn't intended for, but even the information we receive is out of our control. The control over the content we send and receive is rightfully ours and we need not and should not compromise on it.

The idea of social networking on a digital platform is one that greatly appeals to me. I would love to share my photos, discuss topics of interest, debate about issues I am passionate about and keep in touch with people who are far away. I am also not averse to meeting new people and interacting with them. I am, however, averse to any of this happening without my consent, initiation or knowledge. All these social activities and information are personal and private and I have every right to choose when, how and more importantly who it reaches.

It is heartening to see that there are a few platforms that are emerging, which seem to understand that social networking and privacy are NOT mutually exclusive and they shouldn't be. I am eagerly waiting to see if these networks will allow me to be the same extroverted and outspoken person that I am in real life on the digital sphere also, while having the same sort of privacy and right of choice as well.