Teeming with chatrooms, online discussion groups, and blogs, the Internet offers previously unimagined opportunities for personal expression and communication. But there's a dark side to the story. A trail of information fragments about us is forever preserved on the Internet, instantly available in a Google search. A permanent chronicle of our private lives, often of dubious reliability and sometimes totally false, will follow us wherever we go, accessible to friends, strangers, dates, employers, neighbours, relatives, and anyone else who cares to look. This engrossing book, brimming with amazing examples of gossip, slander, and rumour on the Internet, explores the profound implications of the online collision between free speech and privacy.Daniel Solove, an authority on information privacy law, offers a fascinating account of how the Internet is transforming gossip, the way we shame others, and our ability to protect our own reputations. Focusing on blogs, Internet communities, cybermobs, and other current trends, he shows that, ironically, the unconstrained flow of information on the Internet may impede opportunities for self-development and freedom. Long-standing notions of privacy need review, the author contends: unless we establish a balance between privacy and free speech, we may discover that the freedom of the Internet makes us less free.

丹尼爾•沙勒夫（Daniel J. Solove），喬治•華盛頓大學法學院教授，國際知名的隱私法專傢。曾於華盛頓特區的Arnold & Porter律師事務所工作，2000年起開始任教。他屢屢受到各大媒體的專欄訪問，包括：紐約時報, 華盛頓郵報, 芝加哥論壇報, 美聯社, 商業周刊, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN等。除本書之外，另著有《數字人：在信息時代中的科技與隱私》(The Digital Person: Technology and Privacy In The Information Age）、《瞭解隱私》(Understanding Privacy，2008）、《完全曝光：隱私與安全的虛假交易》（Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff between Privacy and Security）。

他住在華盛頓特區，除瞭自己的個人網站http://danielsolove.com外，還經營瞭一個聞名全球法律界的專業博客網站http://www.concurringopinions.com。