How private should your online browsing history be? Your thoughts - Action News
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ScienceCBC Forum

How private should your online browsing history be? Your thoughts

A new project keeps track of all the websites you visit and lets you share parts of your web history with others. We asked what you thought about it and you weighed in via our CBC Forum discussion.

New MIT project encourages users to share some of their web activity with others

How private should your online browsing history be? A new MIT project called Eyebrowse encourages users to share some of their web activity with others. (Andrew Wong/Reuters)

A new research project is lettingyou share what you do on the web.

The project, calledEyebrowse,is designed by MIT researchers andkeeps track of all the websites you visit. You can thenchoose which parts of your web historyyou would liketo share withothers.

The projectresearchers sayits purpose is tomake our online spaces a bit more public. The tool also measures how long you have spent on each site.

We asked what you thought about it: How private should your online browsing history be?Would you be comfortable sharing your data? What is the point?

You had your sayvia CBC Forum, our experiment to encourage a different kind of conversation on our website.Here are some of the most insightfulcomments from that discussion.

Please note that user names are not necessarily thenames of commenters. Some comments have been alteredto correct spelling andto conform to CBC style. Click on the user name to see the comment in the blog format.

Most commenters called for greater online privacy.

Many did notlike or understand the premise of the MIT project.

  • "I think your online browsing history should be very private. Only for you to see and not for anybody else to see." Dohn Pratt
  • "If someone followed me around everywhere I went they'd be called a stalker and could be jailed. Internet travel should be the considered the same as our public travels ... our computers also includes our private thoughts." generic

Several believed we should be getting paid for the online data that iscollected about us.

  • "We should be getting paid now for our private data that the greed tanks won't share with anyone other than other corps and CSIS. Just imagine how many bits of info one puts out in a day" Jim

Others questioned why the study was even necessary.

  • "Some online spaces are frequently visited in the sense of public sphere, while others more in the sense of public bathroom ... If they mean that they want to encourage more civil discourse, isn't that what Twitter and other social media are for?" Neal Thomas

You can read the full CBC Forum live blog discussion on online browser privacy below.

Can't see the forum discussion? Click here