For More Online Privacy

To the Editor:

Julia Angwin (Op-Ed, March 4) highlights the need for a new definition of privacy. My parents and their friends tell my generation that if we want something kept private, we should keep it off the Internet. But merely browsing online generates enough data to guess a person’s age, gender, politics, education, religion, sexual orientation and more.

When all of that information is sold to the highest bidder, it turns people into commodities.

We need more transparency on what information is being sold to whom, how secure it is and how we can opt out of it. But we can’t get there if we continue to treat online activities as less worthy of protection than the offline ones.

SHARONE TOBIAS
New York, March 4, 2014