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Did We Lose the Privacy War?
eihab writes "I've been a fanatic about my online privacy for the last few years. I've been using NoScript and blocking Google Analytics, disabling third-party cookies, encrypting IM and doing everything in my power to keep data-miners at bay. Recently, I've been feeling like I'm just doing too much and still losing! No matter what I do, I know that there's a weak link somewhere, be it my ISP, Flash cookies, etc. I've recently gotten AT&T U-Verse, who, according to their privacy statement, will be monitoring my TV watching habits for advertisement purposes. I'm extremely annoyed by that, yet I love the service so much and I don't think I can cancel it. I just can't take this anymore. I have nothing to hide, but I do not want to be profiled and become member #5534289 in a database somewhere that records everything I do. I know I'm not that interesting to anyone, but the idea of someone being able to pull up everything about me with a simple SQL SELECT statement and a couple of JOINS makes me cringe. One of the reasons I hate data mining is that data security is not understood and almost non-existent at a lot of places. Case in point: I changed my life insurance two years ago, and the medical firm that conducted my health screening was broken into and computers with non-encrypted hard drives and patients' data were stolen. That medical firm didn't really need my SSN, but then again neither did AT&T when I signed up for U-Verse. Am I just too paranoid? Is privacy dead? Should I just give up and accept the fact that privacy is not the norm anymore (like Facebook's founder recently said) or should I keep fighting the good fight for my privacy?"
I can understand concerns about privacy when it comes to web browsing, but I don't get the fear about TV watching being tracked. I can't count the number of good TV shows that have been canceled because of bad ratings. Before Tivo existed, every time one of the shows I liked was canceled I wished that the TV network was tracking MY viewing habits instead of the unwashed masses who appear to like reality TV. Ever since I've had Tivo I always record all the shows I like and I'm happy that Tivo is collecting that information. Sometimes I even record and play back reruns (with the TV off) to positively affect the data for the shows I like.
Privacy is a nebulous concept, and it's possible that in some cases, we give up privacy, and in others, we don't. It's not necessarily a binary on/off thing that you either have or you don't. I don't believe that people who say that privacy is dead are correct; or if they are, it's a very narrow view of privacy. You still don't have people watching you in the shower, for example. (Hopefully...)
Check out Daniel Solove's work- here's a good start.
"I've got nothing to hide" and other misunderstandings of privacy
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565&rec=1&srcabs=667622
He's got some other interesting articles on the subject there, and some interesting books as well.
There are still things you can fight for to protect privacy, even if you are giving up some facets. You can fight against ubiquitous surveillance, and continue to do the things that you're doing to protect your privacy. You can help make threats to privacy transparent, for example, by supporting groups like EFF.
They can use it to check your credit history and decide whether you have to put down a deposit or not. They can also use it to tamper with your credit history, if you stop making payments that you owe them, or if they are simply evil.
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