Identity on the internet is a little different, though. Many of our most sophisticated trust systems developed out of the necessity to exchange secure information online between known parties, but once “broadcast” channels like the Web were developed, publishers could expect to put information “out there” for anyone with access to see. Communication was replaced with voyeurism. This led to many of the most annoying aspects of the internet, namely trolls and stalkers, who usually thrive under the cover of anonymity. However, since participation in the broadcast channels isn’t mandatory, trolls and stalkers are seen as part of the risk you take for whatever gain you’re getting from the medium.

Most online interaction until very recently wasn’t easily trackable or assignable to an individual. This freed us to explore things online we would never feel comfortable doing in real life for fear of social reprisal, etc. This could mean a kid in a conservative Christian neighborhood could read books and explore ideas that were otherwise forbidden. It could mean a victim of domestic violence could find information on starting a new life without arousing as much suspicion. It could mean an employee or government official could become a whistleblower more easily. Of course, it could also mean that a man could look at child porn.

The tension between publicity and anonymity became a serious problem as soon as people IRL caught on to the fact that we were all posting online, and some of what we were posting were things we only published within the context of our online interaction. We never intended them to be attributed to our “real” identities, and even if we didn’t mind if they were, taken out of context they could be made to seem damaging. Suddenly, online anonymity ceased to exist, and relatively innocent people have lost jobs, families, friends, and reputations over it.

The benefits to being able to track broadcast channel traffic through tools like Google Analytics are obvious: it allows us to catch wrong-doers like stalkers and child abusers (literally, in their tracks), it allows businesses to better cater their messages to customers, and it deepens the relationship between performer and voyeur by allowing us to know exactly who is watching and what they like best. However, it’s also further bridging the gap between online and IRL interaction. Recently, I had a conversation with a geek at a party that went something like this:

“So I saw you visit my blog a lot.”
“Really?”
“I have Google Analytics. I logged your IP.”
“Oh.”
“You first visited right after we met. Did you Google me or something?”
“Well, yeah. You said you were a blogger, so I thought I’d check it out.”
“So you’re stalking me?”
“If that’s what you want to call it, sure. You’re the one who’s logging my IP.”

When we are each identifiable by a geolocated IP address, suddenly we are no longer free to look at a webpage without first thinking, “do I want people to know I go here?” Sure, there’s accountability in that, but there’s also a certain degree of control. I’m much more likely to visit a webpage than visit a bar or a party, and much, much more likely to read a blog than go on a date. Unfortunately, those of us who share both online and real life relationships don’t always know how seriously we should treat online versus real life behavior.

Sometimes, as is the case with legitimate stalking, it should be taken seriously. We should practice awareness to guard against potential threats. Most of the time, though, I don’t really care who is looking at my stuff, and it makes me uneasy to think that the Web Is Watching Me. So, I’m installing the Google Analytics Opt-Out Plug-In (http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout). Stalkers of the internet, unite!

So in the spirit of my resolution (and to help me convince myself I don’t really want one), here are twenty things you could do with $500 that would change the world (instead of buying an iPad):

1. Protect 16 girls from slavery
2. Teach 12 girls how to protect themselves from slavery
3. Provide bicycles to 8 health workers to reach vulnerable children in remote communities.
4. Build a school for 40 children
5. Pay for one month of legal protection for 2 girls victimized by sex trafficking
6. Fund small business loans for 25 South American women
7. Start 20 Savings and Loan banks for villagers
8. Help 25 families feed themselves and become financially independent with a flock of chicks
9. Provide textbooks in math, science, economics, and history for 71 girls
10. Serve a nutritious noon meal for 33 days to 50 girls in Burkina Faso who walk 6km to school each way
11. Provide sanitary pads for 16 Ugandan school girls for an entire year, ensuring they can stay in school.
12. Send 10 girls to school for a year
13. Keep a safe house for rape victims open for 33 days
14. Provide vocational training for 50 rape victims
15. Provide HIV testing for 50 rape victims
16. Provide ten days of hospital care for 33 victims of brutal rape
17. Provide counseling for 33 victims of rape
18. Provide 5 rape victims the means to support themselves when they return to their village
19. Sponsor a woman in the most impoverished, war-ravaged parts of the world for a year
20. Provide a month of vocational education for 25 prostitutes

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?