In May 2013, only a mere 6 months ago, a private contractor working for the National Security Agency leak classified details about a massive surveillance operation called PRISM. The program comprised of gathering data from emails, online chats, videos and so forth with the intention of identifying potential threats and crimes against the United States. Most of us know who that private contractor was – Edward Snowden, who is now in a temporary asylum in Russia. His leak has resulted in an outcry from the public against government surveillance.

Strangely enough, however, this is not the first time this has happened. Only three years before Edward Snowden existed another group known as WikiLeaks that was headed by Julian Assange. The group also made a splash as it released several hundred thousands of diplomatic cables and other classified materials in 2010. The resulting fallout led American citizens to question the nation’s trust in relation to the international community. In 2007, Electronic Frontier Foundation sued AT&T in a class action lawsuit regarding NSA plan along with AT&T to wiretap the backbone of Internet traffic.

The point I am trying to make here is that, in this day and age, does Internet privacy really matter anymore? Going beyond government surveillance, our virtual personas, our data, are increasingly being tracked by private organizations, such as Facebook and Google and to a lesser extent, apps like Snapchat and Instagram. Nothing really stops these companies from collecting our data, using it, and even selling it on the open market.

Not many of us read the whole terms and conditions we voluntarily sign agree to. I know I certainly have not. The fact of the matter is that we trade our privacy in order to use the Internet. You want to use YouTube and subscribe to channels and leave your comments on videos? Sure, go right ahead, after you register your name, birthday, phone number, and agree to let us review your data and make suggestions to you. You want to send cute little pictures of your cat to someone through Instagram? By all means, do not let us stop you, just first sign up for an account and allow us to share your data with our partners. Keep in mind that any of these terms can change at any time.

This is what we do we every time we Snapchat something or email someone using Gmail. We give up our privacy to access these services. Now we also expect these companies and organizations to not share our data and to keep them private. So far, they have done a pretty good job of it. But nothing, absolutely nothing, mandates that they cannot gather, share, analyze and exploit that data.

When the Internet first started out, the Internet we know of today with the chartrooms and instant messaging and what not, it was a pretty anonymous place. It was a place where you could be anyone you wanted, a place where you could essentially live out a second life. You dictated by yourself, for the most part, what details would be shared or not. But with the advent of social media like Facebook and Twitter and the rise of smartphones, the Internet has become less and less private. MySpace and Facebook encouraged us to put ourselves, our real selves on the Internet and to connect with people we know. When the iPhone came out in 2007, it sparked a whole new wave of connectivity. We suddenly, nearly overnight, became extremely more attached and dependent on the Internet then ever before. We could now tweet something, email someone, send a status update, all with just a swipe and a tap. The Internet for us is not something we keep separate from our real lives anymore; it has become a mere extension of our lives, just one more thing with which other people use to communicate and potentially judge us.

In my mind, the question here is not if the government have the write to spy on us. No, the question here is whether or not we should be willy-nilly giving details and personal data so willingly. For example, every month I receive a report from Google about my usage on their services and products. Just within the last month, I have made 556 searches on Google with 97 percent of that being websites and three percent of that being images. It tells me that I have watched 126 videos on YouTube and that my number one most visited site is Wikipedia. And that, ladies and gentleman, is just a very small portion of what I do on the Internet. Imagine the gigabytes of data that I have stored since I first started using the Internet. Imagine how many gigabytes that you have left.

So before I wrap up this up, I just want briefly mention George Orwell and his work, 1984. In his book, he imagined a place where every move that you made was tracked by this omnipresent being known as Big Brother. He imagined a world where your every single action was analyzed and scrutinized by someone somewhere. And in that work, he imagined someone who was brave enough to challenge that and try to change the status quo.

In my opinion, that is the real question. It is not a question of our privacy being violated and having our world become an Orwellian dystopia. Rather, the question pertains to our generation being sure and brave enough to challenge the status quo and really question whether or not they are okay with not only governments, but also private organizations, tracking their data and having online lives become more and more transparent. I certainly know that I would like to take a harder look at that before I sign away my life away to them.