The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet

Book Description:

Teeming with chatrooms, online discussion groups, and blogs, the Internet offers previously unimagined opportunities for personal expression and communication. But there’s a dark side to the story. A trail of information fragments about us is forever preserved on the Internet, instantly available in a Google search. A permanent chronicle of our private lives—often of dubious reliability and sometimes totally false—will follow us wherever we go, accessible to friends, strangers, dates, employers, neighbors, relatives, and anyone else who cares to look. This engrossing book, brimming with amazing examples of gossip, slander, and rumor on the Internet, explores the profound implications of the online collision between free speech and privacy.

Daniel Solove, an authority on information privacy law, offers a fascinating account of how the Internet is transforming gossip, the way we shame others, and our ability to protect our own reputations. Focusing on blogs, Internet communities, cybermobs, and other current trends, he shows that, ironically, the unconstrained flow of information on the Internet may impede opportunities for self-development and freedom. Long-standing notions of privacy need review, the author contends: unless we establish a balance between privacy and free speech, we may discover that the freedom of the Internet makes us less free.

 

Table of Contents

 

Chapter 1. Introduction: When Poop Goes Primetime

PART I

RUMOR AND REPUTATION IN A DIGITAL WORLD

Chapter 2. How the Free Flow of Information Liberates and Constrains Us

Chapter 3. Gossip and the Virtues of Knowing Less

Chapter 4. Shaming and the Digital Scarlet Letter

PART II

PRIVACY, FREE SPEECH, AND THE LAW

Chapter 5. The Role of Law

Chapter 6. Free Speech, Anonymity, and Accountability

Chapter 7. Privacy in an Overexposed World

Chapter 8. Conclusion: The Future of Reputation

Notes & Index