History of Internet Privacy

Headlines filled with news of data breaches and suspect practices by social media sites may lead you to believe that privacy is a new concern. While concerns about the digital aspects of it might be, that’s just the newest front in a fight that’s been going on since the late 19th Century. Here’s just a few of the highlights from our fight for privacy.

The History of Internet Privacy

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1890

Government record-keeping increases along with the need for privacy laws.

Lewis Brandeis and Samuel Warren’s “The Right to Privacy” is published in the Harvard Law Review.

1800s

1967

1998

1905

Pavesich v. New England: Landmark decision regarding corporate invasion into private citizen’s privacy. Court rules in favor of personal privacy.

Children’s Privacy Protection Act protects kids under 13 years of age and defines how their information can be collected and used online.

Katz v. United States: Supreme Court case extends Fourth Amendment protection of privacy to technology use, with the court ruling that the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. Katz also introduced the idea of a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Data breaches become big news this year, including the first time more than 1 million records are exposed in a single breach (DSW Shoes, 1.4 million records).

2001

The CAN SPAM Act is created to reduce spam messages and protect personal email privacy.

The attack on the World Trade Center changes how Americans view privacy and leads to legislation and government action, such as the Patriot Act (2001) and the NSA’s warrantless surveillance program, that result in increased collection of personal data in the name of national security.

2003

2005

2016

Another Yahoo breach exposes personal data of another 500 million users.

2015

DreamHost begins fight against the Department of Justice when the DOJ requests the IP addresses and contact information of 1.3 million visitors to the site disruptj20.org, a site hosted by DreamHost.

2017

Yahoo suffers a breach of 3 billion user accounts, the largest breach ever.

2013

2014

The General Data Protection Regulation is passed in the European Union, a move aimed at helping people control the use of their personal information. The regulation is implemented in 2018.

European publications begin reporting that U.S. political campaigns are targeting social advertising by using data harvested from users’ Facebook accounts without their permission.

A holiday breach at Target allows 40 million credit card numbers to be stolen.

Equifax, the credit report bureau, suffers a breach that impacts 145.5 million accounts, exposing the personal credit histories of a large number of users.

A breach at Facebook exposed the account information of 50 million users.

Former Cambridge Analytica employee Christopher Wylie comes forward to explain how the company was able to harvest the data from millions of Facebook profiles, bringing to light some questionable practices by social media sites.

2018

Gov. Jerry Brown signs the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, set to take effect in 2020, gives consumers sweeping control over their personal data.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg publicly apologizes for the exposure of personal information. Zuckerberg eventually testified before Congress about the scandal.

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Learn more about how we fought the Department of Justice to protect user privacy and won at our blog.

DreamHost believes that your data belongs to you.

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