Vigilance seems like an odd practice to employ for everyday citizens. One would normally associate the word with danger or fear of attack. However, in this modern age, the truth is that some small measure of vigilance, at least, must be used by anyone who uses the Internet.

The Internet, being a massive and ever-growing entity, holds many wonderful possibilities. Virtually endless information, a social networking playground and more entertainment than people know what to do with can all be found on the Internet. This is wonderful and, in fact, should be utilized by each and every person who has access to the Internet.

This plethora of possibilities, unfortunately, comes with a catch, as do most wonderful tools. The Internet, behind the façade of the aforementioned positive traits, has dangers lurking behind every corner. In addition to traditional dangers, viruses, scams, spam and computer hackers, newer and subtler dangers are creeping up from the parts of the Internet most people know, but few people pay attention to.

Facebook, for example, has been in the news recently regarding the privacy of the site’s users’ profiles. The company is, essentially, making the information that people fill their profiles with more accessible to, more or less, anyone who knows how to use a search engine.

Again, vigilance must be practiced. If people refuse to acknowledge the changes this brings to the Internet, they will end up merely hurting themselves with their own ignorance and inflexibility.

Another premier example is the growing power of the search engine Google. Google has many millions of searches going through their sites worldwide every single day. The company is not inherently bad, but vigilance must be stressed once more.

With such a large quantity of information going through the site every day, organizations such as Google Watch, a group founded to keep tabs on Google, believe the extent of their knowledge could even reach as far as creating accurate predictions of the stock market. Their power of knowledge is truly vast. In the end, the Internet is not an entity to be feared or avoided, but merely an obstacle course. A little vigilance and some nimble toes, and the average user need not worry.