The Illusion of Online Privacy

As the Ashley Madison hack demonstrated, Web companies can't guarantee privacy.

There was a time when people had secrets. Men could discreetly dispose of receipts for flowers, drinks or jewelry, and a last check for lipstick on the collar before turning the key to the front door could hide a multitude of sins.

But times have changed, even if behaviors haven’t. Shopping, chatting and traveling in the digital age means that habits and relationships are all recorded somewhere – whether people know it or not.

And computers are terrible at keeping secrets.

The 30 million users of AshleyMadison.com thought they had some privacy – until hackers last weekexposed their names, addresses and credit card payments. Two suicides have reportedly been linked to the disclosures, which – unlike the almost routine reports about electronic thefts of financial data – have led to consequences far more serious than can be addressed by a credit-monitoring agency.

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