Technology Paper assignment (Essay Sample)

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Technology Paper Assignment
Consumers’ sense of identity is rapidly evolving in the virtual world. Service providers continually position themselves to optimize fully on the consumers’ willingness to share identity information in return for customized experiences and offers. However, a lapse manifests in ways consumers define their identities and make decisions where to place their trust in the virtual world. In the physical world, the elements of space, time, and physical senses control how consumers assess risk, make choices, present themselves, and evaluate the surrounding environment. On the other hand, these parameters are often missing or differ in the virtual world meaning people can have numerous representations or even lose their identities.
There are differing perspectives on ways to deal with the identity issues. The models attempt to provide proper insight into people’s presentations of themselves the way they do in the virtual and physical worlds. People are now living most of their lives in online arenas that challenge traditional forms of identity. The digital arenas provide means to study different formats to allow for identification of people. This then can be deployed to identify online criminal activity as well as for more positive purposes such as work procurement or social interactions.
Researchers at the Bath University have developed a super identity model, which will provide a more efficient and faster method of combating the identity problem. The researchers are developing a complex model, which can identify people online accurately and tackle the problems arising from counterfeit and unreliable identification. The super identity project aims to achieve its purpose by triangulating biometric measures and understanding of online activity and physical attributes. Through this system, individuals’ identities will be easy to discern. The researchers have taken a complex look at how people portray themselves in the virtual space and whether it differs depending on the content, for example, when doing a job search or using an online dating website. They have looked at the ways people utilize swipe technologies to predict biometric measures. Moreover, the researchers have also studied the opinions and attitudes of people towards personal information and privacy to gauge the social acceptability of the super identity model (Taylor).
New risks to online consumers continue to emerge beyond the commonplace malware. The threats target identity to attack the relationship between consumers and service providers. Although consumers are aware of these threats, they cannot stop using the internet because of the interactivity benefits it brings for the best possible services. According to Crowley, Friedman, and West, the threats to identity do not have solutions that are complete or easy to deploy. The solutions need coordination between policy and technical systems at the private and public level. The solutions to the online identity problems need to involve at least the two stakeholders it affects. A recent FTC report encourages the use of browser-based tools to combat online surveillance and tracking. These tools when combined with policy can deter future consumer privacy violations. This model of tackling online threats is designed not to cripple the behavioral advertising industry, which does not pose any significant harm to internet users. New models of tackling online identity problems requires commitment by multiple stakeholders such as web analytics firms, websites, advertisers, browser developers, internet users, and the government agencies (Crowley, Friedman, and West).
The FTC introduced the Red Flag Model in 2010 under laws introduced in 2003 to ensure fair and truthful credit card transactions. Under this model, it is the mandate of the companies that issue credit cards to monitor the indications of potential misrepresentation of self. The companies comply with the regulations by identifying the indicators particular to the firm. As a solution, the firms put in place mechanisms to detect the indicators and then initiate the process for responding and mitigating identity theft. If firms utilize this methodology accurately, then it will mitigate identity theft correctly (Thompson).
Research by the Bell Laboratories aimed to provide insight into how people form identity and their behaviors in physical and virtual worlds. The research combined quantitative, ethnographic primary research, which sampled 5,300 consumers in the United States. The researchers at Alcatel-Lucent studied the construction of identity both in the virtual and physical worlds. The 3-P model of identity of identity comprises three building blocks of Protection, Preference, and Presentation. Protection building block arises from the desire for security and privacy to assert control on which digital data an individual makes public. The Preference building block represents the search for a frictionless experience and easy access to goods, services, and connections....