Many, if not all, sites and organizations store information about their users. This is often done to give their users personalized ads that they will be more likely to click on. The reason companies often keep and share your information is usually because of marketing. If some furniture store knows you’re looking for a new couch, then they may be more likely to get a sale from you if they advertise all their couches to you before anything else, like, say, a bed.

Many companies won’t just advertise their own products, though. A lot of the adverts you see on websites are from other companies that have paid to use this site as a sort of ‘billboard.’ They pay to have their advertising on the sites page, and this is useful for the sites owners because if you click on and purchase something from one of those ads, then they will earn more money. It may even help them get more partners advertising later on, thus maximizing profit. Sites will keep track of your information so that they can give you personalized ads that you’ll be more interested in.

However, this can cause more than a few ethical concerns. Obviously, many people don’t like the thought of their privacy being invaded, no matter the reasoning behind it. Companies storing your personal information is creepy enough on its own, but selling your information (or at least, having the ability to) is understandably concerning for both ethical and legal reasons. Giving someone’s private information out without their knowledge is a crime, but pretty much any site could do this and get away with it.

Then, there could be corrupt employees who could use the personal information to stalk people. This would be admittedly very difficult to do, but many sites do ask for your location, and if an employee somehow hacked into and obtained this information, it could lead to harassment or even a murder. Even if they don’t have your exact location, internet harassment is a crime and can lead to real distress in its victims. Even a hacker unaffiliated with the company could find someone’s personal information and use it for this purpose.

Some minors may lie about their age on certain sites, even without the intent of doing anything nefarious. Obviously, collecting the information of minors who can’t consent is an ethical concern. Taking that information, even if only for personalized ads, could be considered a crime.

Many companies don’t have very good storage of their information, and this is a bad thing. If a company doesn’t have a good storage system, then if something goes missing or is leaked, then they may not have any hope of recovering it. Having people’s personal information requires responsibility on behalf of the website’s owners, and if they don’t have enough responsibility the make sure their information is stored correctly it could seriously hurt the sites users.