Riley McFarlane

English 1101
Professor Probst-Martin
May 2, 2016
Your Right to Privacy: Revoked?
Statistics show that about 46 percent of people across the globe have access to the
Internet. Knowing how many people are a part of the collective online society may threaten
many frequent online shoppers or Facebook users. People who choose to trust an online website
with their credit card number or personal information must really have faith in their constituted
right to privacy, correct? Joe Jeffreys, a rural Illinois farmer, certainly must have. Joe Jeffreys
decided to join a dating website called Farmers Unite. He filled out personal questions like
what his education is, what his height is, and what his gross income is. He lied about his height
and gross income to impress his prospective dates. Joe Jeffreys neglected to read the Terms and
Conditions of the website, and then paid his enrollment fee for the site. Months later, he found
out that someone stole his picture that he used solely for Farmers Unite. He later found out that
the IRS was accusing him for tax fraud because his gross income was higher on the website than
on his taxes. Joe Jeffreys is considering suing Farmers Unite for these reasons. The fourth
amendment protects against uninformed arrests, forms of surveillance, and is principal to privacy
law. Each mans home is his castle implies that each person has the right to govern their own
personal information, according to the Constitution. With this in mind, Joe Jeffreys should win
the court case against Farmers Unite because Farmers Unite did not protect his right to privacy
and because the lack of protection of the right to privacy needs to be brought to the public eye.
Unfortunately, when considering the situation realistically, Joe Jeffreys will most likely not win.

When sharing information with a website, such as a profile picture, a person would
normally expect that the information is kept safe. The Founding Fathers would have been
outraged if their picture was stolen by another person. But the Internet is vast and quite unkempt,
and Joe Jeffreys profile picture that he used for Farmers Unite was stolen by a person who was
promoting school janitorial work. According to Daniel J. Solove, a leading expert in information
privacy law who has written well-known books on how privacy relates with information
technology, the appropriation tort, (which) prevents the use of someone elses name or
likeness for financial benefit. (para. 27). The person who stole Joe Jeffreys picture is violating
this law by stealing his picture and using it as a promotion for janitorial work. But even though a
law is being violated, this issue was not necessarily Farmers Unites fault. Anyone can save a
picture from another persons public profile. For these reasons, Joe does not have grounds to sue
Farmers Unite for the stealing of the profile picture.
A little white lie to impress a girl seems harmless. Joe Jeffreys most likely had no
malicious intent when exaggerating his height and income, and he certainly did not have stealing
money from the government in mind. Normally, a person would not expect the government to be
monitoring the information posted on a dating site for farmers. Nevertheless, Daniel J. Solove
states, The government (also) compromises privacy by assembling vast databases that can be
searched for suspicious patterns of behavior. (para. 12). Even though the Terms and Conditions
included that information on the profile or information shared with another user could be viewed
by a third party, there are certain laws that clash with this concept. A persons identity or personal
information could possibly be considered a work of art. People are their own unique version of
themselves. Copyright protects public information and many forms of art such as paintings,
music, or film (Solove para. 26). Joe Jeffreys posted public information, and according to

copyright laws, he should be protected. Although it was stated in the terms of use, the fact that a
third party is even allowed to view public information is a direct violation of the fourth
amendment. For these reasons, Joe Jeffreys has grounds to sue Farmers Unite for the incident
involving the IRS and for violating the Constitution.
Joe Jeffreys has grounds to sue Farmers Unite and he should win. His constitutional right
to privacy has been violated. In the court of law, the Constitution is the say all. Unfortunately,
there are probably many ways to get around the fourth amendment. The team of lawyers that are
supporting Farmers Unite include a ruthless attorney named Charlie English. Also, the
government agreed to accept personal information from the users, and could possibly have
requested the personal information. The court case would then become quite messy, considering
that the government is involved in a violation of the Constitution. James Gleick, an author whose
work has recounted the cultural impact of modern technology, states, [Google] arranged to
tweak and twist its algorithms and filter its results so that the native-language Google.cn would
omit results unwelcome to the government. (para. 46). This is an example of how government
gets involved with peoples rights. Joe should sue Farmers Unite to reveal to the public that the
government does not protect peoples right to privacy. But considering that Joe Jeffreys is suing
Farmers Unite and not the U.S. government, it is doubtful that Joe Jeffreys will actually win the
case.
The ruthless lawyers for Farmers Unite will probably focus on the fact that Joe Jeffreys
did not read the Terms and Conditions of the website. So, although the fourth amendment is
supposed to protect against surveillance, Farmers Unite did notify the users that their information
can be shared with a third party. Nicholas Carr, a writer who has published books about

technology, shared a quote from Bruce Friedman, a pathologist who is part of the faculty of the
University of Michigan Medical School: I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and
absorb a longish article on the web or in print. (Carr para. 6). Apparently, the Internet has led to
people having short attention spans. This could explain why Joe Jeffreys, and many others, do
not read the terms of use for a website.
The reason Joe Jeffreys should win the case is because his privacy laws were not
protected by Farmers Unite. Whether Joe wins the case or not, it would bring online privacy laws
to the public eye. If the issue of privacy is more prevalent among Internet users, there would be
more opportunity for positive change. Society needs to develop a new understanding of public
and private life, an understanding that protects the choice about how that information is shared
(Solove para. 30). Internet users need a situation to help them understand how their private
information should be shared, such as the court case. But unfortunately, Joe Jeffreys case most
likely would not be the one to spark that understanding. This is due to the ruthless attorneys on
the Farmers Unite team, the fact that Joe Jeffreys did not read the terms of use, and that the
government was the third party involved. Despite his likely loss, maybe the presence of the case
will spark enough in society for them to understand how their personal information is not as
personal as they think.

Works Cited
Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 1 July
2008. Web. 09 May 2016.
Gleick, James. "How Google Dominates Us." The New York Review of Books. NYREV, Inc., 18
Aug. 2011. Web. 09 May 2016.
Solove, Daniel J. "The End of Privacy." Scientific American. Scientific American, Inc., 2008.
Web. 9 May 2016.