It is most likely that, your internet service provider (ISP) is spying on your online activities. At least they will keep IP records, usage time, amount of data used, telephone number used (for dial up access), location of user (for Wifi and GPRS) etc. The worst thing might be VoIP call tapping, Packet capturing, IM chat logging, unauthorized accessing to your PC.
Some ISPs do this for selling these information to other third parties for commercial purpose so those corporate sluts can make more money. But most ISPs are under the obligation to supply their subscribers activity information to the intelligence.
In most cases downloading illegal stuffs like pirated movies, songs, cracked software and games will do no harm to the internet users just like chicaning taxes. But if someone get caught for other issues like posting anti-government blogs and articles, forming groups on different social networking sites to gather people for protesting or leaking some nasty truth about government's dirty mistakes, then charges will be taken against those who are involved not only for anti-government activities but also for copyright infringement.
The horrifying fact is that even the "democratic world" is not free from the online surveillance of network traffic and information filtering! People's privacy is never been respected for the sake of terrorism. But we believe, internet is the best ever thing happened in our life for true worldwide communication. We can't let someone to observe how we think,what we say if we don't want them to! So, we need to be anonymous when we go online, if we feel someone is watching us.
Using Proxy server and proxy software it is possible to hide online activities but proxy based surfing are slow and there could be traitor nodes that will serve as relays to decrypt cache files stored on those computers and ruin privacy! But still it is a great way to protect our privacy.
So, watch your back and be careful while surfing net, downloading stuffs or saying something on some social networking sites! Learn how things work and don't do anything stupid!
