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A Day In the Life of Privacy
wiredmikey writes "Here's an interesting read on the state of privacy and how technology, along with government and social media have changed the idea, and reality of privacy forever. The article takes the reader through a typical day, and highlights many of the privacy issues that we face, from our mobile phones, Internet at local coffee shops, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, all the way down to cars equipped with OnStar, public cameras, facial recognition technology and more. The author concludes everyday we make compromises in the face of Privacy, and none of us will ever have as much privacy as we want."
Even without the internet, you already have no privacy.
Everything you do in public with relation to transactions is recorded and inspected somewhere. (even if it is automatic)
Even non-transactions can be recorded, such as CCTV.
I remember a TV production was done about "disappearing" and there was someone who requested all the information held on him from pretty much every organization in existence.
Packs of pages, probably 2000+ pages in each.
Stuff from credit card purchases, dental records, hospital records, licences, so much stuff.
If you really, really want to vanish from society, learn how to live off the land and drop your whole life.
Maybe find a job in a random diner or bar, typically somewhere in the remote parts of town where you get cash by hand.
Ditch the vehicle, you are now a biker or walker.
Stay out of busy parts of towns since they almost always have CCTV somewhere. In fact, any main road sections.
Of course, I am speaking of a situation where you are completely paranoid and not just wanting to get away from all the tracking, ignore the camera parts if you wish, most data isn't even cared about that they spit out every second.
Your house is now a caravan / hotel / motel / rented apartment. Cash up front, no name required, if you want to stay away from banking of any sort.
No need to pay utilities either with this, that is a bonus.
Either that or be awesome and build a treehouse.
Best be in perfect health too. No medical (probably) and I believe that almost all medical institutions around the world require addressing information. I also believe that it is illegal to provide incorrect information.
Of course, if you are a rational individual and realize that this recording in almost all cases helps people, you'd be thankful that they are recording it.
Even if it is only indirectly, you are still helped by it. Be it advertising, payment history, or your dental health.
There are a minority of people on the internet who would happily pay for services if they were ad-free, I still have no idea why websites do not implement such premium services in to their websites.
They'd actually make a more money in most cases, probably more from advertising from that single person. Advertising is typically in the thousands of clicks/impressions for a relatively small amount.
Even a small amount such as $1-5, that'd be quite a bit of input to the company. All for additional services such as previews, betas, priority feedback, even decision making, mention on some random page, whatever. Why aren't they doing this?! It takes such a little amount of effort to implement through paypal or even directly through banks these days, such little effort for a potential larger income.
They'd also feel a little less paranoid since advertising seems to be hated these days by the types who tend to pay for sites as it is.
People were going crazy at the whole paywall to some news site I forgot about the other year I think it was. I believe it was a pretty great success, even though it lost them a considerable number of their readers.
It's a mad world out there.
The barrier to entry is practically insurmountable due to the network effect.
Not really.
Facebook's temporary success was mostly due to the fact that they targeted college students. The college years are when most people start to form their lifelong "social networks". The 20's are when most people refine and petrify those networks.
However...every year, rough 140,000,000 people are born on this planet. If you target this year's 140M new high school seniors, or 140M new college freshmen, with a new and better "social networking" service, they will jump on it, because their social connections are still in flux, and the social overlap across years at those ages is relatively small.
If anything, the new HS seniors and college freshmen will pull older college freshmen and sophomores and juniors over to their new "social networking" service.
The first mover advantage simply does not apply here. Facebook is doomed. The only question was whether Goldman Sachs could make a few $100M's off of Facebook before it disappears. And that is exactly what they did with their "special purpose investment vehicle" back in January of this year. Dumb money paid those $100M's for no promises. Restribution of the stupid wealth. The next 12 months is the end game.