What can the government about illegal downloads?

The government has been aware of pirating movies and music since the beginning of the internet. Even though there are “warnings” against pirating, people are still doing it. People are more afraid of downloading a virus unto their computer than they are of what the government could do. If the government wants to get Americans to stop downloading music or movies for free they are going to take larger steps in order for a change to occur. 

One idea is to create heavier punishments. Like I said before, when people are downloading music or movies from the internet, they are more worried about downloading a virus than what the government could do. If the government was able to monitor more, and give people a warning and charge them a fee, people would be scared. They might even be scared out of downloading forever. 

Another idea is convicting people through an emotional message. We talked in class about how people become emotionally attached. When they do feel emotional connected they will share a link or become involved in whatever message they see. The government could create a video or ad campaign that has a touching message. If you are going to make a video or campaign have a celebrity or multiple celebrities endorsing this idea with their personal stories. People are going to respect a popular artist or actor more than an average person telling them not to illegally downloading.

And lastly, give consumers want they want. Don’t price music or movie at a high price. The government should promote apps like Spotify, where you can download any song and unlimited downloads with a small fee each month. I feel much better about spending a little money a money on that than spending $1.29 per song on iTunes or downloading illegally. Artists should be encouraged by the government to put their money on Spotify because they still make money from it. For example, my friends are passing around the new Taylor Swift album that they have all copied from one friend because Taylor took all of her music off Spotify. Give people another option to buying a cd or downloading illegally. 

0. Privacy-enhanced personalization.

Privacy-enhanced personalization according to this article by Alfred Kobsa is defined as "aim[ing] to reconcile the goals and methods of user modeling and personalization with privacy considerations, and to strive for best possible personalization within the boundaries set by privacy." Currently it is very hard for internet users to make educated decisions on whether or not they should give information to a site. There is always a dilemma on if you as a consumer can trust to give important information away. 

According to this article there are four factors that help internet users trust a site. Those four factors are a positive past experience, the overall design and operation of a Web site (if it looks credible), the reputation of the web site operator, and the physical Presence of a privacy statement on the site. If you can trust a website based on those things, internet users are more likely to give out credit card information or social security numbers. 

There are several types of users out there. Those include "privacy fundamentalists" who show concern about giving away information so they unwilling to do so. "Privacy unconcerned" show very little concern or anxiety about the way they are viewed online or what information they give away. Lastly, "privacy pragmatists" are concerned about giving out information but will do so if they feel like they can trust the website. 

On the internet people can be whoever they want to be. It's hard to trust a website based of just the things you see if you don't personally know the person or organization so my question is... will we every truly know if our personal information is remaining private?