Claude says this: The Dark Web is a part of the internet that is not indexed by traditional search engines and requires specific software, configurations, or authorization to access. It is often associated with anonymity and privacy, making it a haven for both legitimate and illicit activities. While it can be used for secure communication and protecting privacy, it is also notorious for illegal marketplaces, hacking forums, and other criminal activities.
This term is used widely with that definition, so I will not make an attempt to redefine the phrase, but I will note that using the Tor browser only anonymizes the network layer of a user’s online activity. Cookies are still possible to use, and accessing public website can still reveal information about the user to the website provider, including details about their device and any tracking scripts they might download.
I assert there is a need to differentiate between different parts of the internet that serve traffic, not merely how users access those websites and whether they hide how they access those websites. Specifically, if a website or internet service tries to be private, it should be treated as private. Adequate attempts at privacy should be considered the use of the .onion domain name, staying off of the DNS system completely, requiring a login, or requiring more advanced forms of authentication and authorization.
I argue that merely requiring specialized software is insufficient to demark something as private, if the software is easy to access and widely available to the general public. For example, the Tor browser is easy to download and use. The fact that users assume they are anonymous when using the Tor browser, or that they are accessing a seperate internet that is somehow hidden from the general public does not make it truely private. Fingerprinting, session tokens, and other tracking methods are still very much possible with the Tor browser, and are, in fact, used, to track and identify users despite the perceived anonymity.
In the private internet, all interaction data is owned by the service provider unless a user actively denies the service provider access to that information, either by using software like Tor that was built for privacy, or by using legal means of notification of user preference.
I want to emphasize that the public internet should be anonymous. Many seemingly public websites track their users because nobody understands the cookie notification and what it means. However, if we can publicize these three categories of the internet, users will be able to make a more informed choice on whether they interact with an online service.
Splitting the internet between public and private is too simplistic, given the prevalence of social media and online services that require a login or session token (cookie). We all know to click through the cookie notifications on sites we visit, which are required by law for some applications and hosts. However, the warning that your traffic is not private should be sufficient to deliniate this portion of the internet from truly private services. Especially on social media sites, users still expect some level of privacy and control over their personal information, even though their activity is actively tagged with an identifier.