Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Lazar Bošković, creative director, AgitPROP
In today’s discourse, adjectives arising from the terms “digital” and “Internet” are often equated. However, serious consideration of these phenomena suggests that the Internet is only part of a wider digital world. Internet is a unique, global network, but the digital world is bigger than even it, because not all digital devices are necessarily connected to the Internet. Everything on the Internet must be digital, but the reverse is not true. Digital is a way of recording data, and Internet is one of the means of transmission.
What is digital?
As things stand (or rather develop), only the living world and its needs for food, water, shelter and breathing are remaining (surviving) in the analog world, and everything else is moving to the digital world. Digital money, digital documents, digital signatures … Truth be said, some of this is still referred to as “electronic”, but even this term is slowly becoming obsolete. Even the term “electronic business” is obsolete, because it implied that there is also some ordinary, non-electronic business, existing in the parallel analog world. Today we tend towards digital business that goes beyond the boundaries between the digital and the physical world, through integration of digital technologies in all processes of interaction between companies and consumers. Analog television was officially abolished, and in modern marketing agencies separate departments for digital “something” are ceasing to exist, because today almost everything in the field of communications is produced and distributed digitally.
Digital means the immaterial form of many things that have been analog until recently. All that can be presented as a computer data composed of zeros and ones, can be digital. Even the identity of living beings can be represented in digital recording. In your pocket is a nice collection of digital documents (identity card, driving license, health card…) and digital cash (payment cards, and mobile phones). This is all related to your digital identity, but is this the same as your Internet identity?
Internet identity…
You can call it ‘cyber’, ‘online’ and ‘Internet’ identity, but don’t confuse it with digital identity. Internet identity are some personal things, determined by human means of perception and understanding (name, nickname, avatar, photo, style of expression…). By contrast, digital identity refers not only to the people, but also to things, and is made up of large quantities of data – digital traces. Internet identity has to do with sense, and digital with raw data.
For Internet identity, your biographical details are important – for digital identity, your biometric data. You can build and edit your Internet identity on your own, but the digital one was assigned to you by a computer in the civil service or the bank. On the Internet, the human aspect of your life story is essential, while in the digital world there is no emotion, just a series of numbers 0 and 1.
Internet identity is subject to constant change, for the better or for the worse, but the same digital identity could theoretically serve you a lifetime. Even today there are people without Internet identity, but in the modern countries digital identity is mandatory for all. Internet identity is something you care for by yourself, while your digital identity is cared for by numerous laws and regulations. Although, there are also some rules for the creation of Internet identity as well – both written and unwritten. The written ones say that your identity on a social network is just a matter of good will of the person who is the owner of the network. So to speak – it’s your Internet identity without protection.
As it usually goes, a person goes to sign up to a social network, and a question pops out “Do you agree with the Terms of Use?” They click yes without reading and continue to live in the belief that they have gained some special rights to their user name and the content they post there. They don’t. On the contrary, by clicking YES, they’ve in fact ceded many rights they presumed to have. And the presumption is – as we know – the mother of all … later problems with this social network, which may go so far as to lose everything ever posted there, including the constructed Internet identity.
Truly yours internet identity
There is no personal internet identity without personal internet domain! Only on your own domain you are “your own man”. Establish your personal or business Internet identity by registering all the necessary names of Internet domains. Then use these domains as the addresses for your websites and as part of the addresses of your e-mail. Only thus you will have complete control over your Internet identity, because its essential element – the Internet domain – is yours only, and does not depend on anyone else.
By registering an Internet domain, you can save your name and surname, your own or a family nickname, only for yourself, and ensure uniqueness on the Internet. Also, you can protect the name of your company or organization, its brands, products or services, by registering the same domain names. On the Internet, the rule is that the first who registers a domain owns it – of course, if they didn’t violate someone’s intellectual property rights. In order to avoid the situation where you would have to take over your Internet identity – that is the domain – through litigation and disputes with Internet domain resellers, it’s faster and cheaper to timely register them on their own.
If you immediately pick up your own piece of plastic with digital money, you can finish the process of online registration of an Internet domain in just ten minutes, if your favorite internet provider has this service. And thus you use part of your digital identity, for the acquisition of the first and basic element in creating your own Internet identity.