CONTENTS
Acknowledgments.i
Abstract.ii
摘要.iii

1 Introduction.1

2 Privacy and Internet Privacy 3
2.1 Concepts of Privacy and Internet Privacy. 3
2.2 Scopes of Internet Privacy. 4

3 Contrast of Internet Privacy between China and America 6
3.1 Internet Privacy in China. 6
3.2 Internet Privacy in America. 7

4 Analysis of Causes in Case Study 9
4.1 Cultural, Value and Legal Causes9
4.2 Case Study. 12

5 Strategies of Internet Privacy Protection. 15
5.1 Legislative Protection.. 15
5.2 Self-discipline of Internet Service provider.15
5.3 Web Users’ Self-defence16
5.4 International Coordination and Cooperation16

6 Conclusions18
Bibliography1
1 Introduction
Privacy means an ability of an inpidual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, thereby expressing themselves selectively (c.f. Miller, Seumas & Weckert, 2000:255). Right of privacy is a right which a natural person can dispose his or her personal information and private events. The boundaries and contents of what is considered private differ among cultures and inpiduals, but share some common themes. When something is private to a person, it usually means there is something inherently special or sensitive to him. As one of the basic personal rights, the right of privacy under the scope of globalization is a hot issue which is inescapable by everyone. Privacy is a specific cultural value reflected in different realities.

Internet privacy is the extension of the right of privacy under the network environment. Since the 1990s, Internet privacy issues became more and more prominent, attracting lots of attention. The United States as the most developed country in Internet and also the birthplace of privacy is one of the countries, who are aware of this problem at an early stage. In the U.S., privacy is a right which has a close relationship with personal property protected by the relevant laws. However, the same right in China is just a verbal noun, and there are no clear protective measures in the judicial system. There are many Chinese who have never been aware that they are entitled to this right.

In 1890, Warren and Brandeis, the U.S. Supreme Court justices, published The Right to Privacy in Harvard Law Review, put forward the concept of privacy for the first time. Their article caused a great impact, enabling us to understand one of basic human rights. Furthermore, Crossler and France (2011) published an article on Internet privacy. They put forward that the concept of information privacy existed long before information and communication technologies changed its occurrences, impacts, and management. In China, there are many scholars who began to study privacy and Internet privacy. Yu Wenlian (2005) did a research on Internet privacy and aroused the attention to network privacy. She discusses the content of network privacy and the possible ways of doing harm to the right of Internet privacy. And Duan Jiwei (2007), a graduate student in Hengyang Normal College, not only analyzed the status of network privacy protection in our country, but also put forward some related policies.

Meanwhile the studies of Internet Privacy in the academic field and the measures taken to perfect the legal system in privacy protection are greatly strengthened. From the United States to China, from Privacy Act of 1974 (Office of Privacy and Civil Liberties, 2012:1) to Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986 (Electronic Privacy Information Center, 2010:1), more and more laws were laid down to protect citizens’ right of privacy and Internet privacy. The basic rights of people began to get guaranteed.

In fact, those distinct attitudes towards the internet privacy are caused by two different cultural value systems. In this thesis, on one hand, will be take some real cases to make a comparative analysis of the different views towards Internet privacy between China and America. On the other hand, it will analyze the deep-rooted different value systems of privacy between China and America in order to improve the current imperfection of China’s online privacy protection. 透析互联网的中美隐私权差异(2):http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_15646.html