Threat Level: RED

For years we've been told that online-privacy policies will protect our rights. Now it seems that many of those policies are not worth the paper they're not printed on.

Google flatly denied that it was slurping data off Wi-Fi networks--until told it to check again. Facebook said it had no idea it was sharing user IDs with advertisers--until . Body scans weren't supposed to be retained; Webcams weren't supposed to capture teenagers in their bedrooms. Some of the biggest companies on the Web failed to play by their own rules, and didn't even realize it.

But Mobile Active Defense's Winn Schwartau says consumers are equally to blame--for clicking on spam and failing to protect their data, for sharing too much and caring too little.

"The biggest problem is criminal stupidity," he says. "If people follow basic security practices--secure their connections, pick reasonable passwords--they'll be in much better shape."