The tremendous growth of the Internet over the past decade has made electronic privacy a matter of growing concern to private and government groups alike. The Internet is still largely unregulated and wide open to the world and as a result the potential for abuse is great. What was once the realm of telephone wiretaps and eavesdropping technologies directed at targeted individuals and groups is now a privacy concern to everyone who uses the Internet and electronic mail.
Many people have serious reservations about giving out personal information on the web.
This has an effect on the amount of business that is carried out on the Net. Companies that conduct business on the Internet recognize these concerns people have. For this reason many companies have adopted privacy policies that they post on their web site to assure customers their personal data will be held in confidentiality. The ways in which our privacy can be violated on the Internet are many. There are companies that have databases with personal information on 10's of millions of people.