Editorial Preface

The last issue of the Journal of Information Privacy and Security (JIPS) for 2017 contains nine articles and one book review. The issue of privacy and security is increasingly important as we move toward a more technological future. The discussion of these articles focuses on the importance of the protection of personal information on the Internet and social network as well as the policies to help minimizing the misuse of data. In the Book Review section, Dr. Arslan reviews the book titled “The Complete Privacy & Security Desk Reference-Volume I Digital” by Michael Bazzell and Justin Carroll. More details are as follows: The first article titled “Future of Privacy and Security – The Four Horsemen” by Choton Basu, the founding editor of the JIPS. This article is a commentary on the future of the privacy and security field. In this article, the author looks at the four key issues could significantly shape the field and impact society in significant ways. The article discusses the topics of Net Neutrality (and US Internet Privacy Laws), Internet of Things, Human Genome (Medical), and Cryptocurrency. This is an opinion paper that is based on current topics, trends, discussions, events and also the editorial and review work done as the editors of JIPS over 12 years. Processing articles that impact technology, regulation, legal, social and policy has helped shape this vision. It is the author’s assessment that these four trends (each) have the potential to change society forever. The second article titled “A Study of Web Privacy Policies across Industries” by Razieh Nokhbeh Zaeem and K. Suzanne Barber brings to light the shocking rate at which industries misuse their customers Personal Identification Information (PII). The authors conducted studies on 600 companies and found similar trends in each company. The study revealed that companies often misuse their customers PII and some do not even have any privacy policies in place. Zaeem and Barber’s findings in these studies can be used to create better privacy policies for companies and help to educate customers on these policies. In the third article titled “Long-Term Market Implications of Data Breaches, Not”, the authors Russell Lange and Eric Burger assessed the impact of data breaches. They not only addressed the effects these breaches have on the company’s performance and the costs that come with the breach, but also focused on the toll it takes on the customers and peer companies. Citigroup conducted research into these breached companies and found that on average the impact did minimal damage to the companies, but still had negative effects on the company’s stock and performance. The fourth article titled “Who Uses Mobile Apps to Meet Strangers: The Roles of Core Traits and Surface Characteristics”. The authors Lixuan Zhang, Iryna Pentina, and Wendy Fox Kirk investigated the concept of social networking sites, specifically WeChat, a social networking site, that is highly popular in China. The authors studied how individuals interacted with the social networks and examined the traits of individuals who used the social features of WeChat. They found that users were not only putting up personal information about themselves like gender, relationship status, and pictures, they were also sharing their location. The authors found that because this information was available, unfortunately there were cases of stalking, harassment, and rape. This research has brought to light huge problems with sharing personal information on social networking sites, and these authors stress the need for users to be more aware of the potential risks of disclosing such information on these sites.