Voyeurs on the prowl in cyber space

BANGALORE, INDIA: Celebrities are a deprived lot when it comes to privacy and personal life. Be it a politician or pop icon or the film star they cannot escape the prying eyes of the new age peeping toms. From highways to the corridors of cyberspace the ‘gossip’ hungry voyeurs are always there to invade into the ‘intimate’ life of the high and the mighty.

If the paparazzi had drove princess Diana to death the online paparazzi ‘kill’ the celebrities with all the juicy words, pictures and more.

While in the forthcoming US the Internet is expected to play a major role in deciding the destiny of the candidates, for some like the Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, it is more of an intrusion into her privacy.

In the beginning it was the ‘pregnancy’ of her 16-year-old daughter Bristol Palin that scandalized the Net. Once that issue almost died down, came the news about a University of Tennessee student hacking the personal email of Sarah Palin. And the investigators from the FBI are reportedly after the alleged peeping tom in the Net.

That’s not the end of the ordeal for Palin. The other day a gossip site called National Enquirer came with the name of a person, who they “believe had an intimate affair with Alaska Governor and Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin”.

Steven Tyler fumes

It is this intrusion into privacy, which really agitated Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler as well.

The agitated pop singer expressed his fury over the unknown bloggers who impersonated him on the Web by suing them.

In the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles, the 60-year-old Tyler said he didn't know the real names of those who have impersonated him and girlfriend Erin Brady on the Web. But he expressed doubts that the same group was responsible for similar postings in 2007.

The postings on blogspot.com had entries about the death of his mother and other "intimate details" from his life. One posting had 31 entries for 2008, and another written by "Brady" had seven entries in recent months, the lawsuit said.

Though this controversy has forced blogspot to remove the blogs, in all possibility tomorrow it will have another incarnation. That’s the virtual world of Internet. A place where you are being stalked always, everywhere – be it the ballroom, or the bedroom.