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Invasion of Privacy : How to Protect Yourself in the Digital Age
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Author: Michael Hyatt, Michael S. Hyatt
List Price: $27.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0895262878
Publisher: Regnery Publishing (18 April, 2001)
Edition: Hardcover
Sales Rank: 61,542
Average Customer Rating: 4.07 out of 5
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Customer ReviewsRating: 2 out of 5
Good research, but too much fluff and "chicken-little"
Take out the fluff and chicken-little-the-sky-is-falling nonsense, and the meat of this book would make up a small pamphlet. There are many more informative authors on the subject of personal privacy. "The Privacy Rights Handbook" is a much better start.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Excellent Privacy Primer
Michael Hyatt's book is a very comprehensive book on
privacy. Privacy is an issue of great variance of
importance to people. Some people are very private and
some do not seem to care at all about their privacy.
This range of concern is based on two factors. One is
trust, if you trust who you give your information to and
those organizations that use this information for
various purposes you have a very high tolerance on
privacy. The second is experience in events of privacy
abuse, if you have never had your credit card number or
identity used, or been stalked, you again will have a
very high privacy tolerance. The strength of this book
is that approaches privacy in degrees of the privacy you
want to attain. The book has very current information
and is supported by an even more up to date website.
The book seems to lack much original thought or
direction, but I think that is caused by the author
offering such a wide range of resources to meet the wide
range of privacy desired by the reader. The information
of the book is well summarized and referenced into a
series of "Practical Privacy Tips" lists and another
"Complete Privacy Checklist" in the appendix. This book
is a little shallow in technical areas, but that is
because it is written for the general population. The
reader with a high tech background will enjoy the range
of choices provided. Another element of the book I
enjoyed was the emphasis of having a family or businessprivacy plan. While privacy tolerance is a very private
issue, a compromise plan needs to be developed for your
household or office. This book is great privacy primer,
I would have given it five stars, but I had problems
with the emphasis on getting a lock box mailing address.
The author did not emphasize enough the need to
maintain that alternative address for a long time after
you move to another location. Change of address notices
only last six months and need to be renewed for several
years. I know when I got my post office box the mail
from the prior box users continued to be delivered
including what appeared to be preapproved credit card
notices. This minor flaw was out weighed by the quality
and volume of information on protecting your privacy.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Good, Practical Advice on Preventing Personal Fraud
Author Michael Hyatt is a best- selling author and speaker who wrote this book to advise individuals on ways to protect themselves in today's digital age. He feels that we need to be aware of the everyday dangers to our personal privacy, and that we should not take this issue lightly. Hyatt begins the book by discussing the supposed "threat" that exists today, from corporations, individuals, and the government. According to Hyatt, there are threats to your privacy that are all around you, and some are not so obvious to the naked eye. Most of us are aware of some of the threats, like government surveillance and Social Security number theft. But other privacy threats are not quite so obvious, like the threat imposed by using supermarket credit cards. Through the use of these cards, the store is able to keep tabs on all sorts of personal data, which is often more information than many people would want them to have. In the second and third parts of the book, Hyatt talks about specific strategies to use, to minimize the problems that are caused by invasions of privacy. He recommends, for instance, using a P.O. Box, whenever practical, instead of your home address, to avoid letting others know exactly where you live. He also recommends not carrying your Social Security Card in your wallet, and getting your Social Security number removed from your driver's license and other forms of ID, to reduce the chances of identity theft. Hyatt wraps of the book with several appendices that are meant to assist the individual in assessing his/her privacy knowledge and risk. There's a privacy self assessment test; a privacy checklist; privacy resource list; family privacy policy; and a public servant questionnaire. Hyatt seems a little obsessed with his concerns about privacy, and many readers might think he borders on being paranoid. Are we really in this much danger, to justify taking all these measures to protect our privacy? Personally, I think Hyatt goes a bit overboard on a few occassions (like when he recommends not using cordless phones, because someone could be listening in) but I must admit that I did take his advice by removing my Social Security Card from my wallet. I don't carry it with me anymore. Overall, this is a pretty good book. It's a quick read, and it does give some sound advice on how to protect yourself in the information age. I wouldn't necessarily take everything Hyatt recommends to heart, but I think that some of his recommendations are worth listening to. It's better to be safe, than sorry.
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