On his blog, marketing leader Seth Godin pointed out that it’s a little late to start worrying about privacy on the Internet; we signed it away the moment we handed our personal information over to the social networking machine. The main thing when it comes to privacy on the Internet is this: Don’t share any more than you want to, because as soon as you’ve shared something, it’s out there. You can’t take it back.

It’s a matter of technology, of legal precedent, and it’s a matter of the way that our culture is evolving. Perhaps most of all, it’s simply a matter of the Internet being incompatible with privacy by its very definition. The Internet can be thought of not so much as a web or a network or a “series of tubes,” but as a single unit where all of our information goes. Anyone can add anything they want, and anyone can take anything they want out of it. If you’re sharing information, just assume that anybody who could possibly want it has access to it. Some companies may offer some degree of privacy in that they won’t sell your information to advertisers, but advertisers have plenty of info on you already.

With that in mind, let’s consider some of the forces at work that are making sure the Internet offers us no privacy, and that it remains that way:

The Government

Remember in the ’00s, following 9/11, when everyone was so certain that we had to give up our freedoms in order to protect our freedoms? One of the first things to go was the illusion of privacy. The Patriot Act gave the government the right to eavesdrop on phone calls and read our emails in the name of fighting terrorism. Well, the Patriot Act was renewed by President Obama in 2011.

Advertisers

The more information advertisers have on you, the more capable they are of targeting you by showing you ads that are most relevant to your interests. This is a good thing and a bad thing. On the one hand, it means they don’t waste your time with ads for products that you won’t want, but on the other, the data (visit this site right here to know data is collected) put out there for advertisers to collect only enables them to more easily manipulate us. Advertisers may also feed information to the government or law enforcement.

The General Public

We have an inherent sense of security when we use our own devices. Unfortunately, we’re not always in secure settings when we’re checking sensitive information online. According to Lifelock, high-tech thieves can skim your credit card number during check-outs and shoulder surf to snap pictures of your account. You wouldn’t post your credit card statement online, so why would you look at it in public?

Privacy on the Internet simply isn’t something we’re going to have access to at any time in the near future. Perhaps we never will, period.