Have We Lost Our Privacy To the Internet?

I believe so. by GmExtremacy · 2012-03-04 10:52 · Score: 5, Interesting

Many people just don't seem to care about privacy any more. And indeed, with people accepting the Patriot Act (in the US) and adopting the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" mentality, I think things will only get worse.

Some places are installing cameras everywhere in public places due to a criminal paranoia. Even if you don't technically have privacy in most public places, the cameras just make this even worse. They're not comparable at all to normal humans spotting you because these cameras are everywhere at once and can (and do) record everything they see (unlike a human's faulty memory, the cameras won't forget anything).

Then there's the whole problem of people willingly giving up all of their information to websites like Facebook. I personally have no doubt that there will come a time when privacy violations and spying are seen as normal and acceptable. In fact, that might already be largely true.

Re:I believe so. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 11:08 · Score: 3, Insightful

We spent thousands of years with no privacy whatsoever. The idea that we ever had some fanciful idea called "personal privacy" is largely a myth. Even with regard to government monitoring. I don't have to remind anyone about our various national histories.
But yes, now data collection, correlation and general connectivity have gone through the roof. So we make laws about, bargain over, even make and sell various products and services, all surrounding personal privacy.
Things ebb and flow.
Re:I believe so. by natefriedmn · 2012-03-04 11:10 · Score: 1

I think it is still a matter of choice. There are still a lot of people who value privacy.
Re:I believe so. by Zaelath · 2012-03-04 11:10 · Score: 5, Insightful

People seem confused in the differences between "I do nothing illegal" and "I have nothing to hide". If you like to cross dress you most certainly have something to hide from your biker mates, or the chaps at the tennis club, or your patients at the dental surgery, or pretty much anyone else that doesn't enjoy your subculture. Yet there's nothing illegal there.
Re:I believe so. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 11:14 · Score: 5, Interesting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_tax
The window tax was a property tax based on the number of windows in a house. It was a significant social, cultural, and architectural force in England, France and Scotland during the 18th and 19th centuries. To avoid the tax some houses from the period can be seen to have bricked-up window-spaces (ready to be glazed at a later date), as a result of the tax.
At that time, many people in Britain opposed income tax, on principle, because they believed that the disclosure of personal income represented an unacceptable governmental intrusion into private matters, and a potential threat to personal liberty.
The bigger the house, the more windows it was likely to have, and the more tax the occupants would pay. Nevertheless, the tax was unpopular, because it was seen by some as a tax on "light and air".
Re:I believe so. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 11:14 · Score: 5, Insightful

We spent thousands of years with no privacy whatsoever.
Thankfully, we realized (and have forgotten, apparently) that privacy is not only preferable, but is important to keep the government in check. A government that can break into anyone's house, spy on anyone, and look for the slightest infraction is one that is most prone to abuse.
Re:I believe so. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 11:14 · Score: 0

I personally have no doubt that there will come a time when privacy violations and spying are seen as normal and acceptable. In fact, that might already be largely true.
Used a credit card lately?
Re:I believe so. by Dunbal · 2012-03-04 11:22 · Score: 2

What choice do you have when someone else (friends, relatives) is posting stuff about you, photographs of you, etc? You can absolutely not participate in "social networking" and still have your data placed out there.

--
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Re:I believe so. by phantomfive · 2012-03-04 11:23 · Score: 2

People care about privacy in the same way they always have, when it affects them. They don't want the world to know they were out walking with their mistress, but they don't care if people know they were walking with their wife.

It's hard for people to understand what is wrong with their browsing habits being collected automatically, especially when they don't see how it affects them. And a lot of people have no problem declaring to the world their strange fetishes.

--
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Re:I believe so. by jhoegl · 2012-03-04 11:23 · Score: 5, Interesting

Except, this isnt the government, it is the "private sector". You might find this a quandary, but consider that a company has your data and you must pay them to keep it away from the free press. Sure, it might be extortion now... but wouldnt that be blocking "free trade"?
You see... when corporations own the government, there is no stopping them to endeavor to make you their slave.
Even monetary systems can be manipulated into slavery. For example, Communism. But instead of the government controlling everything, companies do.
And well... since companies are people... it turns into the one thing everyone has hated and feared since the 1920s.
Re:I believe so. by Dunbal · 2012-03-04 11:24 · Score: 5, Funny

People seem confused in the differences between "I do nothing illegal" and "I have nothing to hide".
Exactly. I suggest that all those who equate wanting privacy with being criminals be forced to carry out their personal necessities like bathing, grooming and using the restroom on national television. We can call it the "but you've got nothing to hide you dumb shit" show.

--
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Re:I believe so. by Barbara,+not+Barbie · 2012-03-04 11:30 · Score: 1

Some people just don't want the government wasting time and money spying on them. And they don't want that same government wasting their time and money using businesses like facebook and google and whatever to spy on them. And they don;t want businesses to spy on them because it's none of their d**** business.

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Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
Re:I believe so. by ohnocitizen · 2012-03-04 11:31 · Score: 1

Is there anything we can do to win the PR war on privacy?
Re:I believe so. by phantomfive · 2012-03-04 11:41 · Score: 2, Insightful

And some people are tired of every story, and every political movement, and everything else trying to get us outraged over something or another.

Chill people, the world is a pretty good place.

--
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Re:I believe so. by epyT-R · 2012-03-04 12:02 · Score: 5, Insightful

the state and private enterprise routinely pass data back and forth between the barrier to get around the regs.. it's a hybrid situation so blaming just one of them is pointless..
Re:I believe so. by epyT-R · 2012-03-04 12:03 · Score: 1

that's not true. we had a lot more privacy because ubiquitous surveillance was expensive so it could only be applied to a few people at a time.. of course, we made up for that by spreading paranoia about the capabilities of 'dear leaders' to compensate.
Re:I believe so. by epyT-R · 2012-03-04 12:23 · Score: 1

Chill people, the world is a pretty good place.
applying your subjective experience to everyone else, in spite of differing experiences and environments, is arrogant to say the least..
Re:I believe so. by dougisfunny · 2012-03-04 12:32 · Score: 1

I think the point he's trying to convey is that in a small town, everyone knows everyone's business. There was no privacy.
Sure, the data didn't get to the corporate overlords as they didn't exist, and the feudal overlords didn't care they just wanted their due. No one farther than two towns over even cares so the information doesn't spread, but there was no real privacy.

--
This is not the funny you're looking for.
Re:I believe so. by grantspassalan · 2012-03-04 12:45 · Score: 1

Technology changes, but human nature does not and will not, at least not in the foreseeable future. When people lived in small villages, the village gossips knew what you had for dinner, how many kids you have and their names, who your husband/wife were, whether you showed up in church last Sunday, that your wagon broke and you got a new horse last Wednesday and on and on and on and on. The biggest difference today is that the village has become global, thus multiplying the number of people that may have information about you. People today actually have more privacy, even on the Internet, than they ever had when they lived in small, tightly knit communities, where everyone knew everybody and knew what everybody was doing. In the days when people lived in small villages, it was much harder to hide things about yourself from your fellow villagers. Today you have a choice of whether to put information about yourself out into the global Internet village. Therefore, you have actually more privacy today in the global village, than people had in their tightly knit communities in days gone by.

--
A sufficiently advanced simulation is indistinguishable from reality.
Re:I believe so. by phantomfive · 2012-03-04 12:57 · Score: 1

Do you have anything else to say, besides telling me I'm arrogant? Thanks.

--
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Re:I believe so. by cavreader · 2012-03-04 12:58 · Score: 2

People tend to confuse "anonymity" with "privacy". The US government and anyone else willing to invest the time has had the ability to gather data about an individual way before the Internet was even born. It just took longer to compile the information. Some readily accessible sources of information includes public utility bills, drivers license's, property titles, vehicle titles, credit history, marriage licenses, school registrations information at all levels, and of course tax related information. None of these sources require cameras or the Internet.
It is totally possible for someone to reduce their online footprint and preserve some privacy if they want to but most don't take the time to do so. People who post their life stories on Facebook or similar sites are voluntarily giving away information about themselves but then turn around and complain about their "privacy" being violated.
Re:I believe so. by next_ghost · 2012-03-04 13:06 · Score: 2

The only difference between a state and a private enterprise is the number of shareholders and their direct power to influence things.
Re:I believe so. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 13:07 · Score: 0

Sorry, A) for not logging in and B) not providing any evidence... But the Window tax of history 'myth' was debunked recently in the UK. And I can't remember where I saw it either. But it was!
Re:I believe so. by roman_mir · 2012-03-04 13:33 · Score: 1

corporations and government being merged is not 'free' anything, definitely not a free market. It's just one form of socialism, more precisely it is fascism.

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You can't handle the truth.
Re:I believe so. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 13:48 · Score: 4, Insightful

Privacy died over a decade ago. Only the magnitude of the damage to loss of privacy has been amplified.
Cookies, Banner Ads, JavaScript, Java Applets, DejaNews (yes, they were the first ones to archive Usenet posts for an indefinite period of time, before they got bought by Google), site redirects by an advertiser. Remember the Sun CEO quote--you have no privacy, get over it (or very close similar words). More recently, using scripts to submit an invisible form on the user's behalf, to knowingly and deliberately browser security to force tracking cookies (not just Google, folks, other advertisers too are still doing this even if Google fixed their issue).
Only now, more than ever before, is it profitable to hold a user's data hostage, demanding a court order to remove that which the user still owns the copyright over.
But it isn't new--it's just a much higher severity than ever before when it causes someone embarassment, or the loss of a potential or current job, or when something someone says has been dealt with--it still lives on longer than it should.
And, most importantly, building up massive user profile for the stupid fucking dream that a user will not only intentionally click on an ad (as opposed to accidentally when the ad interfered with where they intended to click) and even more ludicrous, that the same user will actually buy something just because the ad stalked them from page to page and targeted them.
Re:I believe so. by plover · 2012-03-04 14:06 · Score: 2

Nonsense. Privacy used to be an absolute. You could quite easily prove you were alone. Go in the middle of a field with a companion and simply look around. Have your conversation. It would go unnoticed and unrecorded. It was private because it couldn't have been anything else.
Now, I can't walk down the street without various buildings' cameras watching my every coming and going. Middle of a field? Assuming I can get to one without scrutiny, my companion could be recording the conversation. My own clothing could have been bugged. A satellite or plane could be recording video of the event. Even my own cell phone is continually broadcasting my location.
The very ability to assume privacy has been lost.

--
John
Re:I believe so. by phantomfive · 2012-03-04 14:12 · Score: 2

Thanks, I'd like to kill you, too.

--
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Re:I believe so. by interval1066 · 2012-03-04 14:14 · Score: 2

We spent thousands of years with no privacy whatsoever.
INCORRECT. We've spent thousands of years in relative obscurity, one had to make a monumental effort to be noticed; fame has always gone hand-in-hand with wealth, as one of those rare, difficult acheivables. Well, the price of fame has plummeted like a rock.
We've never needed to be really concerned with privacy, getting information up to now has been realtively expensive, so privacy was easy. We now live in a different age, and privacy is the commodity. Your looking at the situation with an inverse lens.
If you don't value your privacy you're a fool. Just becuase something can be had on the cheap doesn't mean its not valuable. Just ask google, making scratch on your information must be lucrative.

--
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Re:I believe so. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 15:36 · Score: 1

People seem confused in the differences between "I do nothing illegal" and "I have nothing to hide".
Whenever I hear someone say "If you've got nothing to hide...", I ask them if they take a shit with the door open.
Re:I believe so. by shentino · 2012-03-04 15:59 · Score: 1

It's not just that.
It's also that our personal information is valuable enough that companies see profit in exploiting it, and when the majority of internet services feel the same way, you'll be hard pressed to withhold it and still be able to do business.
Your information is precious enough companies will lie, cheat, and steal to get it. One may as well try to squat on farmland during an oil rush. Sooner or later someone will find a way. If TOS loopholes aren't good enough there's always convenient "hack" attacks.
Re:I believe so. by grcumb · 2012-03-04 16:10 · Score: 4, Insightful

We spent thousands of years with no privacy whatsoever. The idea that we ever had some fanciful idea called "personal privacy" is largely a myth.
I've seen this chestnut trotted out before, but it's not as pertinent as a lot of people would like to think.
I live in the developing world in a locale where personal privacy is largely as it was 3000 years ago when these islands were first settled. I can assure you that a digital society that records your every action with perfect accuracy is not at all like village life.
Yes, it's true that everyone here knows everybody else's business. It's not at all unusual for me to meet someone in the street whom I haven't seen in months, and they'll already know what I've been up to earlier in the day. Buildings here are not designed to suppress sound (it's the tropics, don't you know), so you actually have to make an effort to ignore some of the things that happen next door.
But the local culture has long adapted to these circumstances. Privacy is actually jealously protected, not only by the individuals, but by their neighbours. They'll gossip like crazy, but they will not, for example, let a person's drunken weekend spree come into consideration when they're applying for work.
Most importantly of all, government and police are not given carte blanche access to their collective knowledge.
In short, there's a world of difference between a place without privacy and a surveillance society. Let's be clear that in this case we're talking about the latter.

--
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Re:I believe so. by blahplusplus · 2012-03-04 16:50 · Score: 2

"Many people just don't seem to care about privacy any more. "
It's not just that, it's that the internet was never designed with privacy in mind to begin with. The cost of maintaining privacy are huge because just the act of communication on a digital network can be de-anonymized quickly because of the nature of electronic communication. No one predicted the internet would get to be what it was. So much of it's infrastructure was never designed with privacy or security in mind. Think about how encryption was never standard on all connections from the get go.
It goes way beyond people sharing their info on facebook. Even if there was no facebook, the simple act of browsing the internet (communicating/downloading) is automatically a ripe platform for mining information no matter how well you try to plug the wholes. It's inherent to the nature of communication to be 'leaky'.
Re:I believe so. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 17:06 · Score: 2, Interesting

Companies do it because it works. Re-marketing. It's very successful. You go to a website looking for something. They tag you. Then you see their ads all over reminding you of what and where you were thinking of buying something. Conversion rates for re-marketing are much higher than you might think.
Re:I believe so. by MaskedSlacker · 2012-03-04 17:19 · Score: 1

That's not very chill at all. Good of you to add hypocrisy to his list though.
Re:I believe so. by phantomfive · 2012-03-04 17:37 · Score: 1

You wouldn't believe how chill I am when I kill people.

--
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Re:I believe so. by moneybabylon · 2012-03-04 18:13 · Score: 1

"Many people just don't seem to care about privacy any more."
That's only because most people have yet tasted what it is like losing their privacy.
All the most ferocious privacy advocates I know have been victims of lost privacy e.g. been a victim of identity theft.
They all mention how much they regret not placing importance on privacy beforehand.
Re:I believe so. by sjames · 2012-03-04 18:44 · Score: 2

No, we spent thousands of years with a different sort of privacy. For most of history, a day's walk was enough to become completely anonymous. You were whoever you said you were. Nobody thought much about a right to start over because there was no way to prevent anyone from starting over at any time. If you were a peasant, even the king would just have to take your word for who you were if you weren't in your home village.
More recently, there was in theory a permanent record, but it was scattered around. Yes, a zillion years ago when the principal said "this is going on your permanent record", it did. It's a brownish crumbly bit of paper in a folder amongst many thousand others in a dingy basement somewhere (unless there was a fire or a flood). Nobody will ever see it again. Nobody would even know to look for it unless you tell them. It could be brought together, but only with considerable effort and on a case by case basis. Many of the records required a visit to an archives in person and payment of a copying fee. The search on those records had a less than 100% success rate even if they were actually there and not mis-filed. It didn't really need much protection because it was quite unlikely that anyone would actually invest the considerable time and effort needed.
The ability to conveniently access personal data and correlate it in any meaningful way is new. It is a sufficiently powerful capability that it fundamentally changes the nature of the data stored.
The other side of it was the parity of information. You knew about the people who knew about you. Further, you knew who knew about you and for the most part, you knew what they knew about you and what they didn't.
Re:I believe so. by Genda · 2012-03-04 19:44 · Score: 1

Unfortunately, our form of enterprise rewards virtually one thing only and that one thing is profit. You best believe that if American Corporations can profit from gutting your human rights and stripping you naked in public, you will someday wake up to a chilly morning in your birthday suit. If recent history has taught us nothing, Corporations put the wealth and power of their own boards, ahead of the well being of their shareholders. In such a light, what consideration do your think some distant "Human Right" illicit's? I would guess almost no thought whatsoever, and the recent track record of American Corporations would bear that opinion out.
Re:I believe so. by xenobyte · 2012-03-04 20:06 · Score: 1

Some places are installing cameras everywhere in public places due to a criminal paranoia. Even if you don't technically have privacy in most public places, the cameras just make this even worse. They're not comparable at all to normal humans spotting you because these cameras are everywhere at once and can (and do) record everything they see (unlike a human's faulty memory, the cameras won't forget anything).
Actually cameras are good in my opinion. First of all, the great majority have nothing to hide and should not fear the cameras.
The criminals do have something to hide and should fear the cameras. In the beginning there was only cameras when crime most often were committed, i.e. at the bank, the convenience store etc. - but the criminals simply disguised themselves while at the crime scene and the cameras were mostly defeated.
Now there's enough cameras to actually catch the criminal putting on his disguise and thus how he really looks.
Sometimes it is even possible to backtrack the actions prior to the crime. One case I heard of had a bank robbery where the robbers carefully got rid of their getaway vehicle and left no trace. But they didn't think it though because they didn't consider the time before the robbery. it was possible using traffic cams to backtrack from the arrival at the bank to the car park where they switched from own vehicles to the getaway car, acting natural and not trying to hide in order to avoid attracting suspicion ahead of time - and there both faces and license plates were available... Needless to say, they were caught fast. But it was only because the density of cameras were high enough to follow a car with certainty all the way from A to B.

--
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Re:I believe so. by bocin · 2012-03-04 20:08 · Score: 0

How about shattering the "myth" of personal privacy and give us you credit card numbers, social security number and mabey even your name, "Anonymous Coward"? That's not to fanciful now, is it?
Re:I believe so. by yahwotqa · 2012-03-04 20:27 · Score: 1

Not even profit anymore. Nowadays, it's all about growth, or how much more profit did you have this $period compared to previous one.
Re:I believe so. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 23:33 · Score: 0

to knowingly and deliberately browser security to force tracking cookies
You a verb.
Re:I believe so. by Anonymus · 2012-03-04 23:48 · Score: 2

That's so cute, you think the corporations aren't the government :)
Re:I believe so. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-05 00:08 · Score: 0

And still on slashdot we call people who care for their privacy cowards....
Re:I believe so. by FoolishOwl · 2012-03-05 00:33 · Score: 1

The jurisdictional disputes can get pretty nasty, sometimes.
Re:I believe so. by GmExtremacy · 2012-03-05 01:34 · Score: 1

First of all, the great majority have nothing to hide and should not fear the cameras.
Right. Same thing that the government tries to say about the Patriot Act, the TSA, and warrantless wiretapping...
Only a small minority of the population is composed of criminals. Yet we feel the need to pass rights-violating anti-terrorism legislation, "for the children laws," and put cameras everywhere, all to satisfy people's paranoia.
It's a public place, yes, but you didn't used to have the government watching you and recording your every move in every public place you went, did you? A human memory is nothing compared to a camera's, and humans can't be everywhere at once like they can. It makes me feel unsettled, and quite simply, afraid of the government itself, even if I'm not doing anything illegal. They become this entity that watches over everyone (supposedly for their own "benefit") that have no watchers of their own. There are so many laws that you could break, and if they want to, they could watch for the slightest infraction.
So sorry. Catching a few criminals (who will just find a work around, or they'll continue like always) isn't important enough to me to justify this government spying on public areas. As I said, technically there wasn't much privacy in these public places, but it used to be that if a place was empty, you'd know no one was watching and recording you. I rarely trust the government with something, and I definitely don't trust them with these spying capabilities.
So, yeah, break out your "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" logic anytime, but it's not going to convince me.
Re:I believe so. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-05 02:29 · Score: 0

welcome to facism, where the government and the corporations work together for a better tomorrow!
just not a better tomorrow FOR YOU.
Re:I believe so. by Boscrossos · 2012-03-05 02:30 · Score: 4, Insightful

This. Companies like to see big fat black numbers at the bottom of the balance sheet. They really don't sit around stroking a pet of some kind and cackling maniacally at their next scheme to put one over on those nasty consumers. Truth is, they don't care about you, they just want your money. If they see ways to get at it better, they'll use them. In this case, targeted advertising should be more effective,, since it will offer you stuff you want (if the targeting system is halfway smart, at least), so you would more likely be interested. Meanwhile, the company can save money because now they just have to advertise to the people who might buy their stuff instead of to everybody, hoping to hit the few % of consumers who need their product. Basically, it's smart missiles vs carpet bombing, and I think we can all agree that smart missiles should cause less collateral damage.

Oh, and before anyone gets the wrong idea: I am 100% against companies gathering (and holding indefinitely) personal data of people who did not give it up freely, knowing what they are getting themselves into. But I am also cynical enough to believe that a large percentage of Facebook, smartphone app, etc users would just shrug if you told them, and say they don't really care. Frankly, I myself don't much care if the corporate world knows I want to buy an inflatable pool, a bulk amount of whipped cream, and a used industrial vacuum cleaner. Let them make of that what they will. I do, however, draw the line at personal information I did not give to them. I do not want to receive mail/phone calls/creepy ads that state my (alleged) location/names of my close friends/etc, unless I gave that information to you personally.

--
Jesus saves... the rest takes full damage.
Re:I believe so. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-05 05:15 · Score: 0

Here's a thought about those that subscribe to the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" philosophy....
The "nothing to hide" part is subject to change without notice.
Example, your government has always allowed freedom of speech but one day becomes a police state. Now the government can go back through each individual's online profiles and conversations to determine if you're for or against them. Suddenly you have something to hide.
Re:I believe so. by GLMDesigns · 2012-03-05 07:10 · Score: 1

The only way to stop that dystopian future (corporations owning government) is to limit the power of government. Regarding free trade - it depends on who is considered to be the owner of the information. Free trade does not condone theft.

--
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Re:I believe so. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-05 07:48 · Score: 0

The only way to stop that dystopian future (corporations owning government) is to limit the power of government.
Uh, no. Another approach is to eliminate big business.
Humanity survived thousands of years without huge international money-sucking corporations. Heck, back in the day that was church + state's job. Then the industrial revolution came and the merchant class got real power.
I have yet to see a good argument that big business can do anything for people that smaller businesses can't do.
Re:I believe so. by GLMDesigns · 2012-03-05 07:54 · Score: 1

I have no problem with the end of big business - provided it isn't done by government. Government manipulation of the marketplace leads to corporatism in the same way that government made blackmarkets (the war on drugs) leads to crime and the prison/police state mentality.

--
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Re:I believe so. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-05 12:24 · Score: 0

corporations and government being merged is not 'free' anything, definitely not a free market. It's just one form of socialism, more precisely it is fascism.
unless, of course, your lord and savior ron paul were elected president and sold our government and every last one of its operations wholesale to the highest bidder. that would naturally be the greatest form of liberty, right?
Re:I believe so. by Macgrrl · 2012-03-08 14:09 · Score: 1

If you would like to read a book that explores this concept further, I can recommend Blind Faith by Ben Elton.

--
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
Re:I believe so. by Macgrrl · 2012-03-08 14:16 · Score: 1

While our privacy may not have been protected by statute, historically people have been afforded privacy due to the difficulty in monitoring and recording their behaviours. If you think about the effort to record information about someone and communicate it over any significant distance comparing today to as little as 50 years ago. Long distance phone calls were still special then, photographs had to be telegraphed at great expense or mailed. The available bandwidth for transmitting data was significantly restricted, so only 'important' data was sent with any speed.
Privacy was the default state because of the effort to expose someone was so great. These days people broadcast nearly everything about themselves on publically viewable channels, and what they don't broadcast themselves is probably captured by corporate or governement agencies for their own benefit.

--
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World

I live in the EU by Intrepid+imaginaut · 2012-03-04 10:55 · Score: 0

Not applicable.

Re:I live in the EU by JoeMerchant · 2012-03-04 10:57 · Score: 1

UK is not in the EU?
Re:I live in the EU by x1r8a3k · 2012-03-04 11:14 · Score: 4, Interesting

Do you really think that its not happening wherever you are too? Like Google, Facebook, etc. Europe isn't spying on you just as much as Google, Facebook, etc. in the US is?

As much as you like to poke fun at us Americans(often rightfully so), we're all in this together.
Re:I live in the EU by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 11:14 · Score: 0

How is the internet different in the EU? I'd make an educated guess that facebook and google dont care where u are from...
Re:I live in the EU by arunce · 2012-03-04 11:58 · Score: 1

Yes.. geographically.
It's a island.
Re:I live in the EU by JoeMerchant · 2012-03-04 13:08 · Score: 1

I was under the impression that the European Union is a political construct, saying the UK is not in the EU would be like saying Hawaii is not in the USA.
Re:I live in the EU by arunce · 2012-03-04 13:31 · Score: 1

An impression? Well, some have this illusion that UK supports EU.
Re:I live in the EU by cbope · 2012-03-05 00:05 · Score: 1

There is one important difference, we have laws in place in the EU to give teeth to our privacy rights. There was a recent example from last year... a guy (in Italy if I remember correctly) requested Facebook to provide all the data they were holding for him. They had to comply by law. Yes, they delivered a huge stack of data to the guy... but the point is they have to provide the data when asked. At least you can see what they have. In the US, companies will just laugh at you (together with snarky comments) if you ask them to relinquish such data.
I believe it will not be too long before we are able to request destruction of our private data to a third party and they will have to comply by law.
In the US, it seems the right to privacy has become a privilege and is no longer a right.

Data Protection Act by Richard_at_work · 2012-03-04 10:57 · Score: 2

Not entirely sure about the reference to the UK, as we have some of the best data protection laws there are.

Re:Data Protection Act by TheRaven64 · 2012-03-04 11:23 · Score: 2

We do have these laws, but I have yet to see them enforced against a US-based company. Even one with a significant UK presence, such as Google.

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I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Re:Data Protection Act by Richard_at_work · 2012-03-04 11:51 · Score: 3, Informative

They certainly do get enforced - http://www.computerweekly.com/news/1280094253/Google-breached-UK-data-protection-laws-says-ICO
Google also respond to Data Requests under the DPA.

ummmm......No shit, bro by butilikethecookie · 2012-03-04 10:59 · Score: 0

ummmm......No shit, bro. I was thinking this in 2005. Mark my words: The next big outcry will be apple remotely recording you on your facetime and back camera. What a good time to apply duck tape over my ipod and tell my girlfriend to stop wearing low shirts. (aww...) Who the f*ck even uses facetime? They need to make a Windows client version of it.

Re:ummmm......No shit, bro by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 11:17 · Score: 1

ummmm......No shit, bro. I was thinking this in 2005.
Mark my words: The next big outcry will be apple remotely recording you on your facetime and back camera. What a good time to apply duck tape over my ipod and tell my girlfriend to stop wearing low shirts. (aww...) Who the f*ck even uses facetime? They need to make a Windows client version of it.
Holy shit. Did you just prop up and drop-kick a strawman right in front of all our eyes?

Semantic Gripe, incoming! by PessimysticRaven · 2012-03-04 10:59 · Score: 5, Interesting

I take serious issue with anything that implies a person's problem is because of "The Internet." Like the poster above (and many more to come, I bet), people simply don't care anymore. If the Internet can be held responsible for anything, anymore, it's enabling people that are so desperate for attention, they need to inform others of every minutiae of their life.

Or I could have simply interpreted the title incorrectly; it is a silly thing.

--
Consistency is only a virtue if you're not a screw-up.

Re:Semantic Gripe, incoming! by butilikethecookie · 2012-03-04 11:04 · Score: 0

ummm....bro. I don't have facebook twitter or any other BS. I don't BLAME the internet for anything. I am talking about apple and ipod/phones. I am a privacy FREAK. You sir, are a hater.
Re:Semantic Gripe, incoming! by PessimysticRaven · 2012-03-04 11:19 · Score: 1

I'm sorry, at what point did I specify you, oh person I've never seen before?
I took issue with the title of the article. Reading comprehension. It's fun!

--
Consistency is only a virtue if you're not a screw-up.
Re:Semantic Gripe, incoming! by Fluffeh · 2012-03-04 11:42 · Score: 1

people simply don't care anymore
You shouldn't mistake the apathy at something that isn't seen to directly influence them with a proper agreement when it does come to bite them personally. Most people are so intoxicated with their own importance or so sheep-like that they do not see how many laws passed to protect them can be later misused against them. I do however find that many people, once informed properly do take umbrage to what is happening.
I think that we need to stop calling people out on their apathy while showing the same towards them in a if you don't care, why should I? approach, but rather inform, educate and bring them to our side of the fray.

--
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Re:Semantic Gripe, incoming! by PessimysticRaven · 2012-03-04 15:18 · Score: 1

people simply don't care anymore
educate and bring them to our side of the fray.
Oh, god. If you only knew... I'm a teacher, by trade. I do this, daily, but I consistently feel like I'm a parent watching a child stick a fork into a wall outlet for the fifteenth time. ESPECIALLY on subjects pertaining to security while online.

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Consistency is only a virtue if you're not a screw-up.
Re:Semantic Gripe, incoming! by Fluffeh · 2012-03-04 15:38 · Score: 1

Oh, I totally agree, but if we are to have any hope at all, then it is these masses that need to be aroused. Certain protests can be made by very visible means, take Gandhi walking to the sea to make salt - perfect protest. Very visible, gathered momentum, turned into a spectacle. In others protests though, it is much harder to have that sort of visibility. When teaching others in regards to online privacy or draconian laws, I try to put it as much into a "this could happen to you..." context. I have found that if you word it like that, people will show much more empathy to the cause and in doing so actually become aware of what is going on.
If you tell someone that the government is putting up cameras on street corners, most people shrug it off, but if you say that the government is putting up cameras that record their every move at a nearby intersection, they get interested. If you tell them that the government is reading people's emails to stop terrorists, they don't mind - but if you tell them that their personal email is being read they suddenly take interest.
Telling someone something for the fifteenth time means you aren't getting the message through. Try using a different message to get the same meaning across :)

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Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Re:Semantic Gripe, incoming! by Lotana · 2012-03-04 17:12 · Score: 1

If you tell someone that the government is putting up cameras on street corners, most people shrug it off, but if you say that the government is putting up cameras that record their every move at a nearby intersection, they get interested. If you tell them that the government is reading people's emails to stop terrorists, they don't mind - but if you tell them that their personal email is being read they suddenly take interest.
Telling someone something for the fifteenth time means you aren't getting the message through. Try using a different message to get the same meaning across :)
That just sounds like manipulation to get them on your side. Essentially you are morphing the neutral fact ("Government is putting up cameras on street corners") into a fear-inducing statement ("Government is putting up cameras that record your every move at a nearby intersection"). This is the very definition of FUD.
Thus the question becomes: Is FUD and propaganda the only way to reach an apathetic person? Will this work on people that are exhausted from all the constant sensational bombartment from the media?
Re:Semantic Gripe, incoming! by Fluffeh · 2012-03-04 19:11 · Score: 1

This is the very definition of FUD.
That's actually quite insightful, but I don't totally agree with it. When you have a lot of propaganda coming from one side about how good it is that the government is doing all of this to catch the bad guys, you sometimes need to balance that with a different view showing how all that "good work" can be used against anyone. I find the best way to put that into perspective is to show the listen how it can apply to THEM.
While using some fear and uncertainty may not be the most ethical way to get a message across, it generally jolts people out of their stupor and a more intelligent conversation can continue.

--
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!

Nothing published, nothing private lost by hsmyers · 2012-03-04 11:00 · Score: 1

I don't have a cell phone so in my case if I didn't type it in somewhere, then it isn't 'out there' hence nothing lost. But that aside, we are gradually losing a number of rights, privacy not the least...

Just try shutting down your facebook account by multiben · 2012-03-04 11:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

Just try shutting down your facebook account and then answer this question. My fingerprints are smeared all over the internet mainly because of Facebook alone. The cat is out of the bag and no matter what I do I can't get it back in. I don't really have much to hide, but man I shudder for those that do.

Re:Just try shutting down your facebook account by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 11:16 · Score: 0

you can permanently delete your facebook profile and all of your posts including posts to other user's walls will disappear. google it. of course, facebook still has a copy, and any one of your "friends" could have archived your profile to their hard drive at some point. Facebook is the AOL of social networking.
Re:Just try shutting down your facebook account by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 11:20 · Score: 5, Interesting

You have plenty to hide. You just don't know who it needs to be hidden from yet.
Re:Just try shutting down your facebook account by multiben · 2012-03-04 11:47 · Score: 1

Spooky. We're talking about aliens here right?
Re:Just try shutting down your facebook account by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 11:53 · Score: 0

What facebook account? Not only that but I long ago realised the evils of their "like" button and blocked all their domains.
Do you think that when Zuckerburg famously called his users "dumb fucks", he had a point.? Only dull conformists are comfortable lounging around a panopticon. The pendulum will swing the other way when folks realise the results a single comment from a careless "friend" can have on their lives.
If you're going to do anything in life, you cannot do social networks. Those that use them well do so professionally and only after they have established themselves.
Re:Just try shutting down your facebook account by cr_nucleus · 2012-03-04 12:00 · Score: 2

I believe The Onion has it right.
Re:Just try shutting down your facebook account by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 12:11 · Score: 0

I'm afraid your fingerprints are smeared all over the internet because of your fingers.
Re:Just try shutting down your facebook account by StripedCow · 2012-03-04 13:29 · Score: 4, Informative

The cat is out of the bag and no matter what I do I can't get it back in.
Well, the one thing you *can* do, is to inject so much noise into the internet about your persona, that the information that is currently on the web becomes practically useless.

--
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Re:Just try shutting down your facebook account by RKBA · 2012-03-04 15:05 · Score: 1

Yes, thanks for reminding me. I'd upvote you if I had mod points today.

--
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
Re:Just try shutting down your facebook account by Doctor_Jest · 2012-03-04 18:12 · Score: 1

I know I violate the TOS, but the only thing real about my facebook profile is my name. I work at a fake factory, I went to a fake high school, and I graduated from a college that is more pun than anything else. :) If they close my account one day because of it, I've lost nothing of value except my annoying tendency to post random thoughts that make little sense. :) I have fun with it.
My relatives constantly attempt to tag my relationship to them, but I don't confirm it... There are photos of me, but that's no big deal. I don't have a real birthday on the site, and I frequently "like" opposite things. I have nothing to hide, but I am not freely discussing things about me that I don't want to be sent through the internet... I am a huge fan of both Ronald Reagan and Keith Olbermann... I support gun control and the 2nd Amendment, and I'm a liberal and a conservative. :) If the data miners are going to get any good info from me, I'll make 'em work for it. :)
Amazon knows my buying habits. I've visited Porn sites without TOR, I download Linux ISO's via bittorrent (and some old movies as well)... but I'm not running for office, so my interest in huge breasts won't come up on the campaign trail.
I'm not entirely sure how Facebook handles unconfirmed family relationships, but I've instructed my relatives to give up the family tree stuff... seems to work. And sometimes people post on my wall using my nickname. That's about the most revealing thing I've got on my FB page.
As for gmail, I don't say anything I wouldn't say in a bar or restaurant. People skimming my email will find stupid jokes, lame pictures, and questions about going to get a burrito at Chipotle... I've never been to Chipotle, but hey... I usually just ask and we go somewhere else. :)

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It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Re:Just try shutting down your facebook account by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 23:49 · Score: 0

I don't really have much to hide
Yeah, that must be the reason why you don't show your email publicly on Slashdot, don't give a homepage link, and don't seem to use the user name on other sites.

The irony by kakyoin01 · 2012-03-04 11:02 · Score: 5, Funny

Anyone else find it ironic that an anonymous reader submitted an article about losing privacy?

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The more you know, the more you have to say and the more you should listen.

Re:The irony by robably · 2012-03-04 11:26 · Score: 5, Funny

Just you and Alanis Morrisette, at a guess.
Re:The irony by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2012-03-04 11:28 · Score: 5, Insightful

Anyone else find it ironic that an anonymous reader submitted an article about losing privacy?
Seems like the opposite of ironic to me. If you think leaving a permanent record of your actions on the internet is bad for you, then it stands to reason you would do as much as possible to remain anonymous in those actions.

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When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Re:The irony by multiben · 2012-03-04 11:54 · Score: 2

Looks like you may need to pay a quick visit to... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony
Re:The irony by fast+turtle · 2012-03-04 15:30 · Score: 1

Which is why I've gone the other direction by ensuring that my user name is well known and Like Dvorak, I don't care if you like me, just so long as you know my name.

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Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
Re:The irony by SleazyRidr · 2012-03-05 05:09 · Score: 1

Or he could check out: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/irony

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Is 1563649 a prime number?

Hell No by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 11:02 · Score: 1, Funny

We do not really need anonymity. The business of the future can serve us more efficiently if they know us, and therefor what we might want. I say trust Google to do the right thing.

Re:Hell No by butilikethecookie · 2012-03-04 11:09 · Score: 1

Oh, so trust the guy at the street corner to hold you wallet too, right? The internet should be private.
Re:Hell No by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 11:11 · Score: 0

>We do not really need anonymity. The business of the future can serve us more efficiently if they know us, and therefor what we might want. I say trust Google to do the right thing.
That's a beautifully sad description of hell.

I'm a little more concerned about governments... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 11:04 · Score: 1

If you sign up for something like Facebook and make all your positions on all subjects known as well as who your family and friends are, wouldn't that be an amazing goldmine to a tyrant? An instant database of friend or foe; those to persecute or reward; those whose possessions can be looted and those to give them to. When it comes to privacy, you have to consider the worst-case scenario.

Cable for Free by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 11:07 · Score: 0

If all these corporations are making fortunes by
harvesting our personal data, why do we need to
pay for an internet connection?

Info about me by Skapare · 2012-03-04 11:07 · Score: 4, Funny

I am called Skapare. I've been called Skapare since I played text MUD games online. I do my best to annoy Slashdotters. My phone runs Android. So now I guess everyone knows everything there is to know about me.

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now we need to go OSS in diesel cars

Re:Info about me by phantomfive · 2012-03-04 11:35 · Score: 1

Is that your way of saying you don't care about privacy, or you do?

--
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Re:Info about me by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 12:47 · Score: 0

It's his way of noticing that, quite unintentionally, everything there is to know about him can be discovered using only those easily acquired facts. Like knowing everything about a triangle just by knowing a few things.
Re:Info about me by Doctor_Jest · 2012-03-04 18:17 · Score: 1

Hello Skapare! Would you like to save 30% on your car insurance?
Hello Mr/Ms Skapare! Would you like to refinance your mortgage to less than 3%?
Hello,
I am glad I found your email from a Christian chat room. I am Mr. Nobana Igumalay from Upper Volta. I have $4 million in US dollars frozen in a bank and need an honest, trustworthy, christian person to help me retrieve it.
Greetings,
You have won the UK national Lottery!

--
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Re:Info about me by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-05 00:20 · Score: 0

You forgot to mention a few things. You're above 30. You are against "intellectual property". You've been working in IT departments in network and server support. You've been using Windows, Solaris, and Linus as a professional. You apparently know a guy called Håkon, so you're probably from Norway. You're preferred browser is Firefox (good to know as attack path, we'll write a firefox extension just for you), but you don't use Flash. You know how to program C and C++ and you tried to compile Chrome. You are using Xubuntu and Slackware with XFCE; soon you will upgrade Ubuntu to 12.04. You are against SOPA and threaten on public forums to "move things to the next level" if SOPA ever gets through. You know about traffic analysis.
Okay, now I'm getting bored. You get the picture.
Re:Info about me by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-05 05:04 · Score: 0

No. I am Skapare...

Tinfoil hats aside by Wolfling1 · 2012-03-04 11:09 · Score: 2

I quite like the notion that advertising companies are relatively smart about targetting ads for me. Actually, I'm looking forward to the opportunity to register my interests in a central database that helps me mould and shape my advertising experiences. To me, this seems to be a logical progression - and would put a lot of the control of my personal information back in my own hands.

The problem as I see it is about the value (or price) of privacy. There have not been sufficient legal precedents to put a dollar value on this stuff, and that is the only thing that large corporations will respect. I suspect that many people will stop being so high and mighty about their privacy when they discover that it is only worth 47 cents.

Re:Tinfoil hats aside by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2012-03-04 11:40 · Score: 1

I suspect that many people will stop being so high and mighty about their privacy when they discover that it is only worth 47 cents.
If only that were the case. I would GLADLY pay 47 cents a week to opt out of all the tracking databases. Not the "we still collect your data but just won't show you targetted ads" opt-out, but "log everything to /dev/null" opt-out.
Personally I don't see how facebook alone can be valued at $100B if an individuals' privacy is only worth 47 cents. Even at 47cents/week with a billion users that still works out to revenue of $25B/yr - that's before any costs and the comeptition from the other 100+ or so "lesser" trackers like Google, BlueKai, Axxiom, etc.

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When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Re:Tinfoil hats aside by Grave · 2012-03-04 12:24 · Score: 1

The stock-based "value" of a company is not based on earnings in a single year. Most companies trade at anywhere from a 10x-50x Price/Earnings ratio. Stock value is purely perception, not tangible money.
If you really want to "opt out", you need to obfuscate instead. It doesn't matter how careful you are, if someone really wants to track you or learn about you, they will. So make it hard on them by posting random things, changing your habits, making contradictory claims in public forums, and moving around a lot. That can't be any more effort than what it takes to hide, and at least that way you're able to still take advantage of the positive things offered by the Internet, credit/debit cards, bank accounts, electronic communication, etc. Oh, you weren't avoiding using those? Then you didn't actually try to "opt out".
Re:Tinfoil hats aside by ArundelCastle · 2012-03-04 13:08 · Score: 1

If only that were the case. I would GLADLY pay 47 cents a week to opt out of all the tracking databases.
Except for the database that tracks you paid your 47 cents.
I wonder how much THAT data breach would be worth? ;)
You see how this goes? This is why Do Not Call registries are so much political idiocy. Canada's was and is a joke. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Do_Not_Call_List
The politicians are proposing "Don't think about elephants."
In reality it's "Best block, no be there."
Re:Tinfoil hats aside by Unipuma · 2012-03-04 20:05 · Score: 2

You do realize that targeted advertising can be to your detriment as well, right?
Because if a company knows more about you, they can also find out how much you are willing to pay for their goods and services, and tailor their prices to your profile. Which could also mean they raise the price they show to you, if you have a good income. It's called dynamic pricing, and you can be sure that central database will feed into the algorithms.

But really what are they collecting? by Apothem · 2012-03-04 11:09 · Score: 5, Interesting

I don't think it'd bother us as much if we knew EXACTLY what data they were collecting. Perhaps a policy of some kind when a company is collecting information, they would have to show a sample of what the collected information would look like and how it would be protected. If you think about it, if there is physical proof that your information isn't as identifiable as everyone may think it is, it would probably put a lot of fear at ease. Especially if one knew that the stuff that would make anon data identifiable was missing as a whole.

Re:But really what are they collecting? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 12:53 · Score: 0

I don't think it'd bother us as much if we knew EXACTLY what data they were collecting.
https://www.google.com/dashboard
Other companies should do this, too.

Nah by Colin+Smith · 2012-03-04 11:10 · Score: 5, Funny

Chill. Entropy wins every time.

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Deleted

Given how many want the UK out of the EU by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 11:12 · Score: 0

I think your answer is 'correct'.

Profit by Jazari · 2012-03-04 11:21 · Score: 4, Interesting

While the corporations that use our data have profited much, so have users. I certainly have profited *hugely* from Google's free search engine, free email, free Docs service, free apps on iPhone and Android, etc. I guess some people also consider that they've profited from whatever benefits Facebook and Twitter offer as well.

The real problem is that the information that these companies accumulate can be captured by the government, and that the logs may go back years (or forever)...

Only if you signed up.. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 11:22 · Score: 0

Oh.. that is most of you.. oh well..

BTW I have: No Facebook account, no Twitter account, no Google account, no Apple account, no Slashdot account, No XYZ company account... I think you get the picture.

I don't own a smart phone, and my mobile is turned off until I want to use it.
What do I feel I am missing? Not much.

Still have my privacy, and wouldn't give it away for anything.

Re:Only if you signed up.. by IndustrialComplex · 2012-03-04 12:14 · Score: 1

And you have no friends with any of those accounts?

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Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Re:Only if you signed up.. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 19:19 · Score: 0

My friends value their privacy too, and also behave the same way.
That is why they are my friends.

Straw man by mauriceh · 2012-03-04 11:24 · Score: 2, Interesting

Are we so stupid that we do not see Microsoft and Apple spread rubbish like this to attack Google?
They like the old order where they were kings.

If you are concerned and worried about your privacy, start at home with your government.

--
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907

Re:Straw man by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-05 05:11 · Score: 0

Privacy is FUD by Apple and Microsoft? it all makes sense now.

No, you gave it away by mindcandy · 2012-03-04 11:26 · Score: 5, Insightful

It wasn't "lost" nor was it "taken" .. you traded it for better prizes (free search, free storage, whatever).

Re:No, you gave it away by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2012-03-04 11:51 · Score: 1

It wasn't "lost" nor was it "taken" .. you traded it for better prizes (free search, free storage, whatever).
Since by far most people don't even realize that a trade is being made, or if they do, they have only a cursory understanding of the exchange, I'd say "swindled" is the appropriate term here.

--
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Re:No, you gave it away by martin-boundary · 2012-03-04 12:18 · Score: 1

No, it was "lost". There was no "trading", as there was (and is) no "informed consent" in any meaningful sense of the word.
Re:No, you gave it away by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 12:45 · Score: 0

replying anon cause I had mod points and was using them
The fact that you or "they" did not read or understand the bargain does not mean a bargain was not made. Most sites that have been collecting data since the late 90s have spelled out, in legally clear terms (not common english terms), what data they collect and how it is used. I myself read, parse, and try to understand that. That you or others choose not to do so is not my concern, and it can not be the concern of the businesses that have traded you a service for the data you gave them.
Similarly, since /. likes car analogies, it is not Ford's duty to tell you that your driving habits might be better served by driving a certain model of Chevy instead. (Use a privacy respecting search engine instead of ours, they care more about that since it's important to you.) It is the buyer's duty to avail themselves of that information. If Ford, or Google, or facebook etc, hid their privacy statements, lied about them, and so on, then you would have a different case. But that some people just made decisions without recognizing all the details? Tough luck.
Me, I'll continue to use google and facebook. But my facebook page will continue to be filled with disinformation; and my google searchs will often be for sites that have information about what I am looking for; not always specific information.
Re:No, you gave it away by A+beautiful+mind · 2012-03-04 14:31 · Score: 1

I would love to subscribe to Google, if they would promise not to track me or mandate UI constraints for me in return.

Google makes a fairly low amount of revenue per user, almost everyone on the internet would have no trouble paying it, if the micropayment and subscriber infrastructure were in place for that to happen.

--
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Re:No, you gave it away by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 18:40 · Score: 0

So there is no informed consent in the sense that (allegedly) the average person doesn't understand that A) posting information online is by definition sharing that information with others who can then do whatever they want with it and B) Computers are really good at remembering stuff for quite a long time.
No I think people understand this quite well, but some of them don't give a damn.
Re:No, you gave it away by drinkypoo · 2012-03-05 00:46 · Score: 1

The fact that you or "they" did not read or understand the bargain does not mean a bargain was not made.
Yes, in fact, it does.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"

To give away or not to give away our privacy by Taco+Cowboy · 2012-03-04 11:29 · Score: 5, Insightful

Privacy is a commodity - a private commodity

Each of us has our own privacy, and each of us interpret "Privacy" a little bit differently

As to whether we have given away our privacy to the corporations, I think it's too much of a blanket statement

You see, privacy is ours to begin with. The decision of whether not our privacy is handed over to the corporation largely falls into our own hand

If you decide to value your own privacy, then you won't reveal your own real identity online - and there are many ways to keep your real earth identity separate from your online identity

Plus, if you are so afraid that huge corporations like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook may be gathering your privacy, then you should take step to ensure that whatever they gather from your activities online would not reflect who you are, in real life

Do not blame the corporations if you reveal everything yourself

And one more very important thing - Your privacy is not only in danger on the Internet

There are other areas that your privacy might be revealed to others - like your medical history, your driving licence, your voting records, the secret files the government (governments ?) keeps on you, et cetera

Do not think that just because your online privacy is threatened that your off-line privacy is not

--
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !

Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by GmExtremacy · 2012-03-04 11:35 · Score: 2

Do not blame the corporations if you reveal everything yourself
As someone else said, your relatives/friends could mindlessly give away your information on Facebook or something such as that. Even just a name may be enough for someone to learn something revealing about you with a quick search.
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by Taco+Cowboy · 2012-03-04 11:41 · Score: 2

Do not blame the corporations if you reveal everything yourself
As someone else said, your relatives/friends could mindlessly give away your information on Facebook or something such as that. Even just a name may be enough for someone to learn something revealing about you with a quick search
When you do not reveal everything to your friends, colleagues, and even to your own family members, how much do you think they can reveal to the world about you?
After all, the word "Privacy" came from "Private", and the most "Private" thing there is yourself - yes, your very own self

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Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by jhoegl · 2012-03-04 11:44 · Score: 1

I agree, living in a bubble is awesome! Steve Jobs did!
OH wait....
One other thing, these "other ways to protect your privacy" cost money. So, either way companies are still making money off of you.
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by Taco+Cowboy · 2012-03-04 11:53 · Score: 5, Insightful

I agree, living in a bubble is awesome! Steve Jobs did!
It's not "living in a bubble"
It's merely living your own life without having to tell the world everything about yourself
I've friends who are loud mouths and they will tell everything about everybody, including everything about themselves to the world
Hey, to those people, they are willingly revealing where they work, how much they earn, who their doctors are, what type of disease they have, what political inclination they belong to, and so on ...
For people like that, don't blame the corporations if one day they can't purchase health insurance no more because everyone know that they gonna have cancer to the liver/lung/whatever in the future

One other thing, these "other ways to protect your privacy" cost money. So, either way companies are still making money off of you.
Who says that you need to pay to protect your privacy?
All you need to do is to zip your mouth shut and to be extra careful of what you do online and off-line
If I do not want people to know where I shop, when I shop, how much I pay for milk a month, I don't shop in ONE store and I don't use my credit card when I do my shopping
If I do not want people to know the frequency of my travelling from Detroit to Chicago, then I change my mode of transportation often - fly some times, drive some other times
It all boils down to what you do with your own live

--
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by GmExtremacy · 2012-03-04 11:54 · Score: 1

When you do not reveal everything to your friends, colleagues, and even to your own family members, how much do you think they can reveal to the world about you?
I really don't think I can keep my friends/relatives from knowing my name...
And if some of your information is already on the internet (address, etc), someone could use that name to find out even more.
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by Taco+Cowboy · 2012-03-04 11:58 · Score: 2

When you do not reveal everything to your friends, colleagues, and even to your own family members, how much do you think they can reveal to the world about you?
I really don't think I can keep my friends/relatives from knowing my name...
True, but do they all know your social security card number?
Do they know your credit card number?
That's the gist of it
There are things that we simply can NOT keep to ourselves, like our names
But there are _still_ many other things that we can keep under wrap
I know, it takes efforts, and sometimes it seems like it's unnecessarily troublesome to be so extraordinarily careful with our own lives
But that's the cost of living in this modern society, where we are no longer a "Human Being", we are merely a "Number", a "Blot" on the statistical charts somewhere
And if some of your information is already on the internet (address, etc), someone could use that name to find out even more.

--
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 11:59 · Score: 4, Informative

This is the difference between the US and the EU. In the US privacy is perhaps a commodity. In the EU it's a fundamental human right protected by the constution.
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by Taco+Cowboy · 2012-03-04 12:06 · Score: 2

This is the difference between the US and the EU. In the US privacy is perhaps a commodity. In the EU it's a fundamental human right protected by the constution
In this world where data-mining is practised by almost everybody and their great-grand-mother, it does not matter if your privacy is protected by whatever "constitution", if you keep on revealing who you are to the world, then the world will know about you, and they will know something about you that you yourself haven't yet realized

--
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by epyT-R · 2012-03-04 12:11 · Score: 1

hahahahah.. riiight.. until your government lackies hand over your data to the US government (or its corporations) like the lapdogs they are..
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2012-03-04 12:15 · Score: 4, Interesting

Your approach is way too randian.
For example - I recently sent a URL to a friend with gmail address.
I noticed from the logs that google spidered that website within minutes of me sending that email. Not much of a surprise that google would do it (although a bit chilling to see it in practice), but the problem with your approach is that not only do I need to know that Google will suck up everything I send to someone at a gmail address I also need to know what every other email host will do with email sent to their systems. That's not practical - especially when google does things like offer free email services for personal domains, then I have to do something like dig through MX records to find out who the real host is for every single person I ever send an email too and then figure out what their policies are and if they have changed since the last time I sent an email. That is beyond "not practical" and is now firmly in the territory of ridiculous.
The only alternative then is to live in a bubble of isolation, refusing to interact with anyone using modern means for fear of disclosing information to the wrong people.

--
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by RicktheBrick · 2012-03-04 12:20 · Score: 2

I make comments on digg and soulpancake. I recently did a google search on my user name. I discovered that all of my comments on digg and soulpancake were listed there and they were on the first page. Not only was my username there but also my real name and a picture and my hometown. I did notice that slashdot was not listed so I am grateful for that. I do not know how they associated my real name with my user name. Even though it is possible to know my real name from this I doubt that anyone has taken the time to do so.
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by Taco+Cowboy · 2012-03-04 12:26 · Score: 1

I make comments on digg and soulpancake. I recently did a google search on my user name. I discovered that all of my comments on digg and soulpancake were listed there and they were on the first page. Not only was my username there but also my real name and a picture and my hometown. I did notice that slashdot was not listed so I am grateful for that. I do not know how they associated my real name with my user name. Even though it is possible to know my real name from this I doubt that anyone has taken the time to do so
It's not hard to associate one person's real name with his online name if that person reveals too much too often regarding his/her own real lives to the world
Do you know that it's possible to get the social security numbers of many people?
Many associations (plural) routinely put their membership list online, and yes, with their member's social-security-number listed as well

--
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by ArundelCastle · 2012-03-04 12:43 · Score: 3, Insightful

I noticed from the logs that google spidered that website within minutes of me sending that email. Not much of a surprise that google would do it (although a bit chilling to see it in practice), but the problem with your approach is that not only do I need to know that Google will suck up everything I send to

I'm not sure why it's chilling either. Spidering the link immediately delivers "relevant" ads to your Gmail window right away. That is how Gmail is meant to be.
Chilling would be if your robots.txt is set to turn down spiders and they do it anyway. Chilling is when they don't play by their own rules, not the rules themselves.
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by Taco+Cowboy · 2012-03-04 12:43 · Score: 3, Interesting

Your approach is way too randian
No, it's not randian, but instead, it's the most practical way to live one's own life in the world we are living in
It's the you-are-responsible-for-your-own-wellbeing way of living
In this world where everything could be archived somewhere, if you reveal things about yourselves, like the water that has splashed out of a cup, there's no way to get the genie back into the bottle

For example - I recently sent a URL to a friend with gmail address.
I noticed from the logs that google spidered that website within minutes of me sending that email. Not much of a surprise that google would do it (although a bit chilling to see it in practice), but the problem with your approach is that not only do I need to know that Google will suck up everything I send to someone at a gmail address I also need to know what every other email host will do with email sent to their systems
This world we live in is indeed very different from the world our forefathers lived
And the way we live in this world should also be very different from the way our forefathers lived in their world
We must change faster than the pace the world is changing, or we will be consumed by it all

That's not practical - especially when google does things like offer free email services for personal domains, then I have to do something like dig through MX records to find out who the real host is for every single person I ever send an email too and then figure out what their policies are and if they have changed since the last time I sent an email. That is beyond "not practical" and is now firmly in the territory of ridiculous
If you think that it's ridiculous, think of the world our offspring will inhibit
Their every-day-lives will be recoded somewhere
Their presence in every place will be noted, what they said and do will be archived, everything including their shoe-size will be known to people who wants to know

--
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by next_ghost · 2012-03-04 13:23 · Score: 3, Insightful

Encryption is always an option. You can interact with people just fine, just ask them to use proper measures and teach them how if necessary.
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by Larryish · 2012-03-04 13:24 · Score: 1

You can find a VPS with enough resources to handle email for $2 or less per month.
It might not have enough memory for clamspam, but Thunderbird's junk mail feature suffices.
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by godel_56 · 2012-03-04 13:39 · Score: 3, Interesting

As someone else said, your relatives/friends could mindlessly give away your information on Facebook or something such as that. Even just a name may be enough for someone to learn something revealing about you with a quick search
When you do not reveal everything to your friends, colleagues, and even to your own family members, how much do you think they can reveal to the world about you?
After all, the word "Privacy" came from "Private", and the most "Private" thing there is yourself - yes, your very own self
I saw someone on TV on the weekend quoting figures that 30% of US companies said they would not hire a job applicant if they saw a picture of them holding a glass of wine on a social media web site. So all it takes is some dickhead labelling a picture of you at a party on THEIR Facebook page, and they may have damaged your reputation for years.
No action from you required
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by ATMAvatar · 2012-03-04 13:43 · Score: 2

Really, they just need to put their date of birth and address. Since many people do not move far from their birthplace, you can use those two pieces of information to extrapolate their social security number to within a couple digits.

--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by RKBA · 2012-03-04 14:33 · Score: 0, Troll

I'm old enough to remember when the United States had a Constitution too.

--
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 17:06 · Score: 0

I agree, living in a bubble is awesome! Steve Jobs did!
It's not "living in a bubble"
It's merely living your own life without having to tell the world everything about yourself
I've friends who are loud mouths and they will tell everything about everybody, including everything about themselves to the world
Hey, to those people, they are willingly revealing where they work, how much they earn, who their doctors are, what type of disease they have, what political inclination they belong to, and so on ...
For people like that, don't blame the corporations if one day they can't purchase health insurance no more because everyone know that they gonna have cancer to the liver/lung/whatever in the future

One other thing, these "other ways to protect your privacy" cost money. So, either way companies are still making money off of you.
Who says that you need to pay to protect your privacy?
All you need to do is to zip your mouth shut and to be extra careful of what you do online and off-line
If I do not want people to know where I shop, when I shop, how much I pay for milk a month, I don't shop in ONE store and I don't use my credit card when I do my shopping
If I do not want people to know the frequency of my travelling from Detroit to Chicago, then I change my mode of transportation often - fly some times, drive some other times
It all boils down to what you do with your own live
except... and forgive me for saying this...
if you own a mobile phone (and most of us do)... they can track you left, right and centre...
if you use a credit card and if you use any type of electronic shopping... they already have you
if you ever claimed anything on your insyrance electronically, they have you
and... if you ever used google and if google ever installed any of those little cute cookies, they have you
not to mention facebook and all those other cute websites everyone knows and loves...
privacy is more complicated than we al think... so let us not fool ourselves...
#justsaying :-)
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 17:43 · Score: 0

It's not for advertising; it's to make sure user A is not sending user B a link to a malware site. How do you think that stuff would otherwise work?
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2012-03-04 18:43 · Score: 1

No, it's not randian, but instead, it's the most practical way to live one's own life in the world we are living in.
Really? Because I am having a hard time coming up with something more impractical than expecting average users to check MX records and hunt down privacy policies every single time they send someone an email.

--
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by KahabutDieDrake · 2012-03-04 18:59 · Score: 1

So... using a bank account should be done with the consideration that the usage I put it to might come under scrutiny from a corporate entity that has paid my bank for the privileged, meanwhile failing to ascertain my disposition on the matter? Kindly go fuck yourself. Take your corporate spy lords with you.
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 20:08 · Score: 0

Well you can call it 'price for living in modern society' yet there is quite significant part of society that either does not want the constant evasion of privacy and efforts associated with preventing it or given a choice would not want it. Now we all live in facebook era (or any other shitty tool that will come after it) and if there is enough of your loud friends out there your privacy is gone. The technology offers anybody having access to certain tools and/or lawful means a possibility to know almost everything about your financial, movement and world view life aspects of your life. Preventing that does not seem to be possible anymore. YOu call a price and it seems you are willing to pay it. What about all those others that do not and are still delivered anyway? How much does it take for a dedicated group of hot heads to change republic (or what is left of it today) into a state with private enterprise but restrictions on anything from sexual trough political till economical parts of anybodies life.
What about other argument that you have and which I find very odd that you may keep your privacy if you do not share anything with your so called friends. So assuming that this would have prevented anything we have a person that does not share any meaningful parts of self and own life with anybody else. Do you live in a cellar? Do you have any friends worth the term? I mean being friends used to mean to share sometimes significant parts of life with others without fear of betrayal and prosecution. You may of course claim that your friends, your real friends are only those that do not have loud mouths (something that you contradic in your post) but than again you have made mistakes in your judgment too so you had friends that are not anymore but still possess information that may be valuable to others and are ready (not necessarily because of malice) to share this with everybody else. It seems to me that you indeed live the life of a geek i.e. no friends, pizza delivered to your cellar in your parent's house. Other option would be that you have amassed enough power to be on the other side of divide i.e. you can if you like share others' private data at will so you feel empowered by what this new world brings with it.
This brings us to yet another aspect of the new brave world we live in - consent. Neither you nor I have agreed to this new world. You may be happy with what it brings with it what about all these other people that are not? Do they have a choice? I mean real choice, not a choice of moving with all the life aspects to North Zamunda. I mean if somebody malicious put your real name on some evil register (of people that neither state nor the population like) OC by mistake - now how much time would it take do you think for some group of vigilantes to find and share information about you that may seriously distract your precious ways?
I think as you possibly - it is too late to change much but I also think we should fight to put checks and balances in place so that we as a society and as individuals do not have to fear that one single mistake by some brainless asshole (or our brainless younger self) makes our life a hell w/o possibility of redemption.
OC there is no real danger to society - we know that societies that do not value privacy do prosper too. I am sure you can name few that exist today. Would you like to live in one of those - assuming you do not belong to the ruling elite there?
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 22:14 · Score: 0

Hey Taco Cowboy!
As a regular traveller between Detroit and Chicago, why not take advantage of our low, LOW price bus service?! You needn't feel thirsty while you travel either - delicious milk available on-board for only 99 cents a guzzle!
Got friends who are loud-mouths? Let us take care of that for you! You won't hear a peep out of them again (if they know what's good for them)!
Mouth-zipping services? We've got that covered!
What's more, we'll never sell your personal details to anyone else we don't approve of. So you can rest assured you'll only get the BEST deals, direct to your inbox, no fuss required.
Thanks for keeping us in the loop,
Yours, Adman.
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 22:16 · Score: 0

Privacy is a commodity - a private commodity...
True, privacy is a commodity like life and limb but it certainly is not a private one.
Consider a single gmail account and notice that it is googles policy to record all traffic to any and all domains, not just to gmail. (And even that would nullify the idea of privacy being a private property.) A single gmail users nullifies privacy for every single individual he is ever in contact with and since that's the purpose of an email addy, there's likely to be many victims.
Facebook has a policy of making profiles for people who have never registered on their goddamn site. Half of the internet is riddled with Facebook's Like button tectacles. And then there is the matter of people mentioning the movements and whereabouts of other people on Facebook and even posting pictures of other people there. And they can manually label people in the pictures or Facebook does it automatically.
In other words my privacy is being sold out by other people. Those utterly despicable insects who think I'm a lunatic and a luddite swarming to use any and all such services where they sell not only their own privacy but also everybody else's.
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 23:18 · Score: 0

I noticed from the logs that google spidered that website within minutes of me sending that email. Not much of a surprise that google would do it (although a bit chilling to see it in practice), but the problem with your approach is that not only do I need to know that Google will suck up everything I send to
I'm not sure why it's chilling either. Spidering the link immediately delivers "relevant" ads to your Gmail window right away. That is how Gmail is meant to be.
Chilling would be if your robots.txt is set to turn down spiders and they do it anyway. Chilling is when they don't play by their own rules, not the rules themselves.
In this example, I don't think they spider the link to deliver relevant ads, but to add content to Google Search index they haven't found through public crawling. Should there be a robots.txt if you didn't want to share it with the world? Yes. But I think few would suspect that server content they link in a private email, otherwise not linked on Internet at all, would be immidiately added to the public Google index. If Google have clearly and publically stated that they do this (I have not seen that, but might have missed it), then they are playing by the rules as you say, but rules that few are aware of.
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by u64 · 2012-03-05 00:53 · Score: 2

"It all boils down to what you do"
This moves a burden of privacy-protection over on the individual. I think privacy-by-default
is good. And anyone who wishes to be tracked should have the right to freely
make that informed choice.
These days, the important details are hidden deep in obfuscated Agreements. But most often
without Agreements, for example, visiting a site and instantly being silently tracked.
These days we're NOT informed about where and when and how we're tracked.
We're all screwed-by-default.
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-05 03:12 · Score: 0

> No, it's not randian, but instead, it's the most practical way to live one's own life in the world we are living in
That's just what Rand would say. Except she would probably replace "most practical way" with "only moral way."
(captcha: insecure)
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-05 10:33 · Score: 0

I'm not sure why it's chilling either. Spidering the link immediately delivers "relevant" ads to your Gmail window right away. That is how Gmail is meant to be.
When most people believe that the email they send will only be seen by the intended recipient it is chilling to have that assumption remorsesly deconstructed. It may indeed be the way gmail is meant to be, but expecting the sender to know how the receiver's email system deviates from common expectations is unreasonable.
Re:To give away or not to give away our privacy by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-05 10:44 · Score: 0

I saw someone on TV on the weekend quoting figures that 30% of US companies said they would not hire a job applicant if they saw a picture of them holding a glass of wine on a social media web site.
And the problem is with social sites and not with those US companies? Talk about beaten housewife syndrome...

What people often don't understand by MikeRT · 2012-03-04 11:38 · Score: 1

In the eyes of evil people, even the most innocent actions can be twisted into something nefarious or vile.

Have We Lost Our Privacy To the Internet? by Strange+Ranger · 2012-03-04 11:45 · Score: 1

Yes.

Next?

--

Operator, give me the number for 911!

yours, not mine by holophrastic · 2012-03-04 11:46 · Score: 1

my e-mail is my own. I don't use google, nor facebook and that's why. in fact, the only place I give anything to is right here like this. oh, and my browser agent string is also generic -- not that I'm proxied or anything.

so my privacy, and my expectation of privacy, remains in tact, just as it did before the internet, when I was 8. though I can't say how many others have chosen to publish my information against my wishes, but I'm not legally responsible for that.

Re:yours, not mine by multiben · 2012-03-04 11:52 · Score: 2

That's a very naive view. Your privacy remains intact until one day one of your friends or business contacts accidentally or deliberately forwards on a private email. Once that happens good luck getting it back. It happens every day.
Re:yours, not mine by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 13:10 · Score: 0

First of all, does it matter if you're 'legally responsible' for losing your privacy? If your care for losing your privacy is purely ideological, then you need more fun things to do in your life. Chances are that unless you're committing crimes or pissing off powerful organizations, you will never be affected by privacy loss, so no point losing sleep over it.
That being said, I guarantee that you are being tracked in numerous insidious ways. The moment you were born you lost your privacy, first to the government, then to the school systems, and then more and more institutions as you got older. Each of those institutions may share some or all of the info they have on you with any number of other institutions. As societies get more technologically progressive, more and more of that info is connected to a centralized system, to the point where any schmuck in a government job can access what you ate for breakfast. Then you have the private corps, who are all doing the same things as the government but with more incentive, more competence, and less culpability and oversight. Facebook alone has built and enormous Information network for tracking and sharing user info between companies that would make the government in '1984' drool.
Not that it is all out of your control; You can share every aspect of your life with Facebook if you like. However much of it IS out of your control, and when you get increased insurance rates because of profiling based on data you had no power to stop them from collecting, or arrested at the airport for some misunderstood email you sent to a coworker, maybe on that day you will finally understand why people care about this stuff. Until then, they aren't coming for you, so don't worry about it...
Re:yours, not mine by holophrastic · 2012-03-04 13:32 · Score: 1

that doesn't make me legally responsible for it. so my "expectation of privacy" remains legally intact, and I'm not in breech of any NDAs. my actualy privacy matters much less than my legal expectation of privacy.
Re:yours, not mine by holophrastic · 2012-03-04 13:36 · Score: 1

my legal expectation of privacy matters way more. for example, running a business, there are tonnes of confidential information and NDAs and such. if you send something through gmail, you are in breech of just about every NDA you've ever signed. that means that any confidential information that you've sent to me (that you also sent via gmail to anybody) is mine to sell publicly, and is no longer confidential because you put it into the public domain.
it's not my "privacy" that matters, it's my "confidence".
how I'm being tracked is irelevant. there are things that are not legally done with my information. and if they are done, I'm not at fault for them having been done -- because the information was taken without my permission. that's different than when you intentionally put something onto facebook.
it's not about control. it's about liability. that's very different.
it's about what I can be held accountable for, to whom, and what I'm allowed to legally do with the information that you may have given to me.

Mod up by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 11:47 · Score: 0

Parent is not the entire truth, but it's at least 40 percent of it right there.

Case in point - I order a lot of stuff from Amazon, where they are typically on sale for 20 percent or more off the list price. Yet sometimes I'll stop by Barnes and Noble and pay more. One of the reasons is that I don't want to get an email from Jeff Bezos down the road saying, "Hey Joe, we noticed you once ordered 'The White Album' by the Beatles. Right now save 40 percent on the Monkees T-Shirts and collectible items!".

I hate those.

Usual Grauniad hypocrisy... by owlnation · 2012-03-04 11:48 · Score: 1

Ironic to have Guardian journalists complaining about privacy. Not only are they as guilty as most of the UK press in phone hacking, their paper is full of links to Facebook.

This article brought to you by the newspaper that condemns rich people avoiding tax, and hedge funds -- whilst being almost entirely funded by an hedge fund operating from the Caymans.

Re:Usual Grauniad hypocrisy... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 13:18 · Score: 0

I'm enjoying the current Grauniad backlash. they seem like such a bitter and twisted bunch of journo hypocrites.. And I used to enjoy reading it too. Mind you, the daily G2 supplement is quite enjoyable still as I don't pay to read it.. Except on Women's day..

Name changes will become the new norm at 18. by WiiVault · 2012-03-04 11:51 · Score: 3, Interesting

With the continued backlog of potentially negative data soon to be facing young-adults as they leave childhood and enter the job market, I expect Facebook will bring about an era where name changes upon adulthood become common place. Of course some people will go ahead and be stupid with their new identities too as many do now. But what other option will today's kids have to remove affiliations from their latest Beiber hate rant of drunken high school tweet?

Re:Name changes will become the new norm at 18. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 13:48 · Score: 0

Society is changing.
Eventually people hiring those with "foolish" stuff posted online will be the same ones that have foolish stuff about themselves online as well. People are starting to realize everyone has stupid stuff out there about them and as time goes on, most people won't care.
The hiring managers that don't select someone because they admittedly smoked pot, have some posts about smacking up some hoes at a party that were talking smack about them, have a video of themselves dancing like lunatic half naked with a beer in her hand while in college and another one of him/her driving 100 in a 40 mph zone is passing on hiring them for the wrong reasons. The stuff people are doing now as teens and young adults is no different than what people were doing for decades at those same ages. Maybe what they were doing is a little different as times and society has changed but they are still pushing the limits of "acceptable" like you and everyone else was doing in that age range. Most people in the world have done similar things with or without posts and video evidence and they are now successful in the work place.
This argument that kids today are screwed up and stupid for doing what they do is never ending.
Now, go yell at someone to get off your lawn.
Re:Name changes will become the new norm at 18. by WiiVault · 2012-03-04 16:16 · Score: 1

How insensitive! I don't have a lawn I still live in my mom's basement. In case you missed it your URL bar says slashdot.org right now.
Re:Name changes will become the new norm at 18. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 16:43 · Score: 0

In the US it is impossible to change your name without creating a matter of public record that can be slurped up by any data aggregator.
--Anon JD..
Re:Name changes will become the new norm at 18. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 18:36 · Score: 0

Thanks to facial recognition und social network analysis name changes wont do you any good. The mapping databases will exist and anyone who wants to can do the mapping.
Re:Name changes will become the new norm at 18. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 19:19 · Score: 0

How does this work with biometric image searches?

Internet? by tomhath · 2012-03-04 12:02 · Score: 1

Here in the US the political season is already starting. Just as it has been for decades, we're getting robocalls from the various candidates. I also get many credit card offers every week with my name on the envelope and pleas from the alumni association to send money. Privacy? What's that?

as I understand it by gtcodave · 2012-03-04 12:20 · Score: 1

if you are a normal man or woman like myself anything you put on the internet is esecially not private unless you encrypt the tits off it. do not expect the UK Data Protection Act to save you. howver if you are a corporation where generally a lot of law attempts to make you transparrent you have very little to worry abou because you can afford lawyers. that may sound cynical but in light of the recent DNS blocking in Denmark of google etc it seems that nothing makes sense at the moment. or maybe it never has and I'm finally grown up enough to see the world for what it is?

--
-- David

Not quite... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 12:45 · Score: 0

Do you know who I am? No?

EoT.

We have. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 12:57 · Score: 0

But not so much to voluntary disclosures as to the ever present police state, patriot act, NSA and the world court. Our privacy has been taken away by the very government our constitution warned us about. Interesting how our demise was presaged by over 200 years by a bunch of radicals, eh?

Too late now.

JJ

Really? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 13:01 · Score: 0

Who made you sign up for facebook or buy an iphone?
It's our own fault.

Bad title, it's not the Internet by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 13:02 · Score: 0

I really destest the article title, to the Internet? How about to the scum sucking CORPORATIONS on the Internet. Not the Internet itself.

How? by dbet · 2012-03-04 13:11 · Score: 1

How are companies making money from mining data? It seems like anyone who might actually want that data could very easily just mine it themselves.

And yet marketting products is no more successful by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 13:30 · Score: 0

Pinpoint targeted advertising has been the goal for years. As we approach that, are the marketing campaigns any better at selling products and getting people to spend money on specific things than it was 10, 20, or 50 years ago? My guess is NO.

Marketing plans must not have realistic measurable goals or companies are just bouncing around from one random marketing campaign to another hoping to finally get one that "kind of" works. They look like heroes and probably never get many successful repeats after that. They at least market themselves pretty good though. Companies keep paying for the promises though.

Re:Technological parallels to innate abilities by grantspassalan · 2012-03-04 13:49 · Score: 1

In a world where everybody knew everybody else's thoughts at any and all times, might not be so bad at all, provided there were NO exceptions of any kind for any reason. It would make it impossible to plan anything bad by anybody, including governments. Anybody with a malevolent or selfish thought would immediately know that everybody else knew that they had such a thought. It would make it very difficult if not impossible for evil to exist. The main problem might be who gets to decide what is good and what is evil.

--
A sufficiently advanced simulation is indistinguishable from reality.

Question about wget as a disguise by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 14:10 · Score: 0

If, while I am doing my normal, private browsing of articles on-line using a web browser, I run wget -r 'some-url' in a separate session, will that effectively disguise my actual activities by burying them in the noise of the essentially-meaningless-but-simiilar queries that wget does in the background?

We didn't lose it by Darinbob · 2012-03-04 14:20 · Score: 1

We didn't lose it, we gave it away.*

We need to stop being the product by A+beautiful+mind · 2012-03-04 14:25 · Score: 1

It's not only a problem from the privacy standpoint, but also in terms of what kind of behaviour it encourages, from online services to journalism.

The paywalled model is utterly ridiculous for the internet and the ad/privacy supported model is utterly destructive. What we need is a honors system like paying for deadtree newspapers (except with user selectable amounts). It does not eliminate ads, but generates enough revenue to act as a counterweight, that makes it easier for the business owner to care about the readers / users of it's product.

The honors system needs to consist of fine grained enough micropayments so that different aspects of a service / product can be rewarded, I want to click a button on the page of a Guardian / Economist article if I thought it was any good, to create an incentive to write further good articles.

There are some micropayment providers that accomplish something similar already, but not nearly in a wide enough scope yet. One that I'm using (and won't name apart from this link) allows micropayments to almost any url, github projects, twitter users, individual tweets and other stuff, that is a good first step. It is still in infancy, but I'm using it because I want to vote with my wallet.

"If you're not paying for something, you're the product" is the mantra, but the often forgotten corollary to this statement is that whoever pays has the influence. I want to actively push the worldview of an open, honors system based internet so that we can have good content and freedom at the same time.

--
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say

The young generation by mattr · 2012-03-04 14:48 · Score: 1

I am a bit worried about the generation of kids in high school and younger now.

In particular kids need an education about Facebook and Twitter, which feel personal but are really public, before they start using it.

Alternate payment by aaronb1138 · 2012-03-04 14:48 · Score: 1

In the case of many services, you are getting something free (Gmail) in exchange for a certain amount of data about yourself. I'm not quite sure what all the FUD about lost privacy is.

If you want privacy, you are free within the market to pay the going price for a secure POP3, IMAP, or Exchange e-mail account and the various rates are reasonable dependent on your need for the service.

I would agree that people give up a lot of privacy, voluntarily and stupidly, namely on Facebook. This is not because of the degree to which Facebook data mines the shiat out of one's information, but rather the stupidity with which they blurt out anything on their mind and day to day ramblings. I use Facebook a decent, but smaller amount than my peers, but I always consider and censor my speech relatively appropriate to things I would be comfortable talking with other people on the street or at a coffee shop about in front of others. Lacking that consideration, yes a lot of people are just plain dumb in the amount of information they give up to Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etcetera...

Also, consider older, or less technologically advanced civilizations. Ones where generations of family live in the long house. Sexual education is a matter of waking up in the middle of the night and seeing your parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etcetera going at it. All of your personal business is constantly before the tribe. Every disease you have had, every sexual encounter, every relationship, economic success and failure, work ethic, social skills -- they are all there for the tribe to see constantly. Those societies have little fear of lost privacy. If one desires an action or time of privacy, they simply leave the village into the wilderness for a time until they are prepared to return. Such as it is with Facebook, Gmail, the whole of the internet. You are always welcome to leave the long house of cable and the village of the internet, and engage on private pursuits, well privately.

Yet we keep hearing all this whining about lost privacy. We have a plethora of tools at our disposal to even game the system and insure our privacy when using tools designed to profit from our disclosure. Cookie blocking, encryption, stenography, ad blocks, the list goes on. Unlike the great tribal village, you can leave the internet and come back at your leisure with no potential harm from leaving to your dependents, family or the community.

At least in our modern era, the data amount is so great, that sure, many networks of computers know a great deal about what I was last browsing at NewEgg or Amazon, but ultimately, no human has the time or interest in actually looking at my or any other person's individual information (unless I do something to draw law enforcements' interest). It is just like the Network Admin work I do, I don't have time or interest in reading all much less a single of several hundred business e-mail accounts to which I potentially have access. It would just be a waste of my time.

Secondly, for all of our collective annoyance and hate of marketing, billboards, commercials, etcetera, at least with the Gmail and Facebook examples, we are being granted a service for free, for which we would normally pay a significant amount. Ultimately, if you consider the constraints, a reasoning individual must weigh the opportunity cost against the downsides of the exchange. Those unable to comprehend the trade-offs may pay more in the end, but this has always been the case when purchasing any good or service, caveat emptor.

privacy isn't the problem, users are by alienzed · 2012-03-04 14:49 · Score: 1

As a specialist in computer security, one of the first things we learn is that "security by obscurity" is the worst possible way of achieving security. There never has been such a thing as true privacy and there never will be. Everything leaves a trace one way or another, that's physics. What paranoiacs don't understand is that nobody cares. ( or perhaps that's what they fear most ) A perfect example is an older friend of mine, who soon after discovering email, came to constantly with his/her troubling discovery that "someone has been breaking into my email and reading my messages". Not only was the notion absurd, but the only thing I could think was "there's no way anybody is doing that, because nobody cares enough to go through the trouble" and with that, it was done. I know, we all have a lot to hide, often not because it's illegal, but mostly because of embarrassment, or the notion that we can continue letting people think what we want them to think. Well it's rubbish. If we could have been raised in a society where honesty was the norm and people didn't take pride too far, maybe we'd live in a better world. Of course now the big problem isn't privacy, or security, it's "greater than though" mentality that has brought countless useless rules and regulations that prevent us from being and acting as we truly are, imperfect humans.

--
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!

Re:privacy isn't the problem, users are by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 15:10 · Score: 0

What paranoiacs don't understand is that nobody cares.
Corrupt governments do. Businesses do. People out looking to hurt you (unlikely, but they exist) do.
Re:privacy isn't the problem, users are by FoolishOwl · 2012-03-05 00:23 · Score: 1

I'm inclined to get frustrated with the paranoia, the fantasies of achieving total privacy, and the additional complication that adds to realistic assessment of security.
On the other hand, the NSA is very busy doing *something*.

Re:Technological parallels to innate abilities by thegrassyknowl · 2012-03-04 15:08 · Score: 1

It would make it very difficult if not impossible for evil to exist.

It would make it impossible for free will to exist.

--
I drink to make other people interesting!

Re:anything we can do? by TaoPhoenix · 2012-03-04 15:45 · Score: 1

Maybe.

We would need to have a Privacy Explosion so epic, we whisper it in the same tones as the Godwin subject. Right now it's all "leaking", and "mostly contained", but suppose absolutely everyone had the entire dataset on everyone else, through some kind of nuclear grade data blunder.

I'd see a shift in fashion to consumer "privacy suits" with faces completely hidden.

--
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine

Re:Technological parallels to innate abilities by Aguazul · 2012-03-04 16:12 · Score: 2

It would make it very difficult if not impossible for evil to exist.

It would make it impossible for free will to exist.

I don't think knowing everyone else's thoughts excludes either evil or free will. Say for example there is a genocidal or warmongering group in power with enough popular support -- us knowing what they are thinking doesn't stop them acting. Even if we know their plans, they know we know, and the balance of power probably can't be shifted by that. Transparency may reveal evil but doesn't stop it. People in general are incredibly selective about what they believe, and psychic powers are unlikely to change that. If they prefer the illusion, unconsciously they'll choose not to investigate or challenge it, even if they have the ability.

We here on Slashdot are more aware about a lot of things than perhaps our relatives are: 419 scams, virus risks, pump-and-dump, good security practice, MS FUD, whatever. We SEE and KNOW -- they don't. It is not so different to reading thoughts -- having the insight to understand something that others are not aware of, even though they could learn if they wanted. However that ability gives only limited power to change the world. The knowledge can't be made to work unless other people can be persuaded to give it importance. Sad but true. No end to evil just yet.

Privacy is [finally] becoming more important... by dtjohnson · 2012-03-04 16:32 · Score: 2

5 years ago, you were considered a little nutty if you ranted about the loss of privacy on the internet. Now, in 2012, people are finally starting to realize that 1) loss of privacy on the internet has big consequences and 2) loss of privacy is not mandatory or required to use the internet. Those 'free' email addresses on gmail or hotmail are not really free but are paid for with your personal information and...that price is high.

Privacy was gone... by blahplusplus · 2012-03-04 16:45 · Score: 1

... long before internet. The internet just accelerated trends that already existed. Satellites constantly monitoring earth. Security camera's in major malls and shopping outlets whose video's are datamined for consumer behavior. Credit cards and shopping cards issued by companies to mine peoples buying behavior. For anyone who uses electronic financial transactions - there is no privacy. You often need to give your social security number and other piece of identification to setup any kind of legal bank account.

Just to exist in the modern world you give out a tonne of information direction or indirectly because often it's mandated by law.

Re:Privacy was gone... by koan · 2012-03-04 17:59 · Score: 1

Fail... that stuff couldn't be tied together to form a cohesive data group prior to the Internet, at least not without a lot of effort by humans.

--
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."

Maybe I missed it by tpstigers · 2012-03-04 16:49 · Score: 1

Is there some one (or some body) that controls the internet? If so, did they at some point in time promise us that the internet is a private place?

the "open book" hypothesis of social living by epine · 2012-03-04 17:24 · Score: 1

We spent thousands of years with no privacy whatsoever.

Rewrite history much? Which thousands? Ever since society reached the point where an individual could be condemned of thought-crime for possessing an artifact with the wrong symbol embossed upon it, people have jealously guarded their privacy, so much as circumstance permits. I do admire the suppleness of your resort to "none whatsoever". Not even a fig leaf to cover the public parts.

Silly article by koan · 2012-03-04 17:58 · Score: 1

You are the one giving it (your information) away, so if that bothers you don't give it away.

Otherwise be prepared to be thought of as cattle by the plutocracy. (you already are for the most part)

--
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."

The real question is.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 19:04 · Score: 1

How many of the billions of internet users really care?

Not very many IMHO.

That is the real scary part.

I am very concerned. Thus I don't use sites likeTwitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Gmail. I use different aliases on all forums. There is only one forum where I use anything remotely like my real name.
If you Google (or god forbit Bing) for me, you find plenty of people with the same name as me but nothing about me. That is the way I want it thank you very much.

Have I got something to hide?
Everyone does don't they?
From the spliff you smoked at a College Frat Party to the Red Light you ran last week. Pretty well everyone has something about their life that they'd rather never get publicised.
IMHO, only the insecure want every facet of their life exposed for all and sundry to gawp over. For the rest of us this crap is about as interesting as watching concrete set.

Web Bugs on the Guardian by dgharmon · 2012-03-04 19:07 · Score: 1

"An article in the Guardian .. discusses whether we .. are .. giving away way too much information about ourselves to large Corporations that profit handsomely from mining the info"
,
It's ironic the Guardian speaking on privacy when it's home page is festuned with Web Bugs, well hidden in iFrames and Javascript and almost impossible to disable.
-------

247realmedia.com/

analytics.edgesuite.net/

c.brightcove.com/

edge.quantserve.com/

goku.brightcove.com/

googlesyndication.com: "Google AdSense is an ad serving application run by Google"

guim.co.uk: "ForeSee Results provides market research consulting and surveys for measuring website satisfaction in the public and private sector"

optimizely.com: "Optimizely is a website optimization solution. The product allows website owners to improve their websites via A/B testing tools".

panel.kantarmedia.com/

pixel.quantserve.com/

quantserve.com: "Quantcast provides real-time detailed audience profiles for advertisers to buy, sell, connect and learn more about what consumers are doing online".

req.connect.wunderloop.net/

guim.co.uk: "Omniture provides on-demand optimization services through a suite of services that includes: SiteCatalyst, Test&Target and Genesis. SiteCatalyst allows publishers to create audience segments. Test & Target provides advertisers with a campaign testing and optimization platform prior to deployment. Genesis provides Omniture clients with integration into third party ad servers. Omniture is an Adobe company."

revsci.net/ secure-uk.imrworldwide.com: "SiteCensus is a web analytics tool for smaller sites that integrates a single clear pixel for tracking purposes to client web sites in order to provide the sites with third-party validation of server-side traffic data for advertisers" soulmates.s3.amazonaws.com/ wunderloop.net, revsci.net: "AudienceScience is a online advertising network that operates a behavioral targeting platform"

--
AccountKiller

Re:Web Bugs on the Guardian by xenobyte · 2012-03-04 19:43 · Score: 1

With all that profiling... How long does it have to take before they figure out that I'm using ad-blockers and script-blockers because I don't want their stupid ads?!!
Stop wasting resources trying to give them to me! - I don't want them! - Get it, log it, understand it and act on it! - Thank you.

--
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --

Then DO NOT give your info up by aepervius · 2012-03-04 21:12 · Score: 1

When I buy something with a large megacorp, I pu the info necessary for the billing. The rest is fake. So for one corp i am female, 71, german, for another I might be male , 23, french, and for another I might be female, italian, and 51. None of them NEED to know which gender am I, my age, or my nationality to sell me stuff. Furthermore I am very well aware of my right of information and rectification, even deletion of info I consider private. That is also why I never buy from american company because I know they are not bound by our local privacy law.

Furthermore I have *one* account for subscription based payment, *one* account for billing based payment. You can spam both away, I whitelist simply the email addy I need (automated move onto a folder) the rest is CRTL-A + DEL. Facebook ? Myspace ? pffft. I am physically in contact with my friend , using voice, SMS, phone, or my normal email addy. I do not need an offline pinwand. And if I did, I would provide it on our own web site , not a third party which would sell my info to anybody and their grandma.

Privacy is something you earn, by not opening yourself to the big world and corporation. If you do open yourself , transparent man/woman-like , then don't cry afterward.

--
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org

Not true by dutchwhizzman · 2012-03-04 21:36 · Score: 2

Until very recently, it was very hard to get private data on anyone else than the roughly 500 people you would encounter most of your life. If you'd move to the next town, only a few people would know just a little about you. If you moved a bit further, you'd be a stranger amongst strangers. It's not since we started automating our records that we have had a real serious problem.

Keeping records may sound nice, but what purpose does the record hold? If you don't really absolutely need the information, you may want to reconsider. Modern history has plenty of proof where "innocent data" has been used by people for not-so-innocent purposes. The first true example in my countries history, sorry to Godwin here, is in World War II. The Dutch were very meticulous about registering everyone in local government administration, including their religion. Once the Germans got here, it was a breeze for them to single out every Jew, go to their home and put them on a deportation train to the camps. It hasn't been the only example in history and it won't be the last.

Keeping records and tabs on everyone will not be purely beneficial. Sooner or later, giving up the data might just not be a benefit to you anymore and you regret you gave it up in exchange for something trivial. The more we do it, the bigger the chance that we get hurt. E-mail spam has grown to such a level that it takes an enormous effort just to keep e-mail as a system practical and controllable. The more data you leak, the more targeted spam you'll get. Not just in e-mail, but your phone, you IM, your social networks, everything is spammed to bits.

It's not just spam. How would you like to have to pay more for your health insurance, because your insurance company found on your FaceBook that you practice a sport that they think is risky? How about paying more for your car insurance, because you know how to properly use your car and the black box put there by the company registers your higher curve velocity as "dangerous driving"? How about being fired for results from a medical test taken in a hospital for something unrelated showing you have been smoking something your employer disagrees with? I can keep on giving examples and sooner or later, there will be one where even you will say "Sorry, but that is just too much invasion of my privacy".

--
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?

My frustration, free vs paid by qwerty8ytrewq · 2012-03-04 23:07 · Score: 1

I was really horrified recently to discover that Apple iOS makes my address book available without asking my permission to installed apps (specifically the Twitter app in my case, but there are no doubt others). I carefully chose an iphone vs Android or whatever other options specifically because of security. Sure, I run Google apps for business, and all my data goes through there, but I (perhaps naively) told myself that this is a paid service, so I am paying them, to leave my data alone (ish) and at least not sell it to the highest bidder.
For the first time ever I am totally happy with my address-book system, I enter data once, in the field and then its backed up and useable.

The thing that really smarts here is that Apple, who I paid big money for iphone and iOS, (Apple are not offering me a free service in exchange for my data like FB ) have neglectfully given away my address book, and perhaps a lot of other data without even a 'by your leave'!
I think this is unethical practice by Apple, and at best a grey area. All I think to do to fix it is go back to a paper address book, seriously? Thoughts?

--
Waiting for the other shoe to...

A question driven by fear, which we should ignore. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-04 23:31 · Score: 0

Can we stop asking the question "should we be afraid of sharing information on the internet" - because the answer is simply: No we shouldn't.

The question we should be asking again and again is this one: "What is the information I'm sharing, and is it being used with my consent"

Whom should we ask this question? Why ourselves of course. It's no one's fault but ourselves if we don't know what is being shared, and how it's being shared.

We have lost our privacy, but when done right, it's to our knowledge, in a controlled manner, to a certain few, and only small details which benefits us as much as them.

I would like these kind of generalized mullings to stop.. it's something which isn't inherently useful to anyone and is mostly fear-driven hype, rather I could see the usefulnes and purpose of articles of specific cases where information is being used without awareness or consent.

My online persona has no privacy by DrSkwid · 2012-03-05 00:27 · Score: 1

But I've never used my real name.

--
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter

this you? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-05 00:45 · Score: 0

http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~pwh/

Implicit narrowing of scope by vikingpower · 2012-03-05 01:14 · Score: 1

The FA's title mentioned "the internet". The FA, however, is mostly on social networks. Which are a subset of the internet. Clearly, there is a hype around the whole issue. What does the Guardian do more, or do better, than hype-mongering ?

--
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace

Corporate espionage? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-05 02:21 · Score: 0

The (rather long) article ends by mentioning that Gmail scans your email, that Facebook apps frequently send your private data right to the app developer, that iPhones are known to log your geographic location, and that some smartphone apps read your address book and messages, then dial home to transmit this info to the company that developed the app.

If I (and other employees) of small businesses have company issued smart phones that means that big business can get access to our customer lists for free? Or "the next big idea"? Is corporate espionage is no longer a crime?

Lost? No, loaned. by Invalidator · 2012-03-05 02:24 · Score: 1

We haven't lost our privacy - we've just loaned it out to the corporations. As soon as our pockets are empty, we'll get it back.

--

~_~ Not tonight, dear, I have a modem.

Glimmer of hope by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-05 03:10 · Score: 0

Luckily, there is a glimmer of hope for Internet usage.
For example, try the search engine DuckDuckGo:
http://duckduckgo.com/

The usage of DuckDuckGo has exploded at the same time as the Google released the new user policy:
http://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html

I do not think the correlation in time between the large increase for DuckDuckGo and the new Google policy is accidental.
Users do care about their integrity.

We never had privacy to begin with.. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-05 03:39 · Score: 0

How can we lose something we never had? Privacy on the web is and always has been an illusion.

Nope. by SCHecklerX · 2012-03-05 05:39 · Score: 1

I run my own servers as the designers intended. I trust myself with my information. I think.

Privacy - another issue by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-05 10:26 · Score: 0

I don't use Gmail, have disabled geographic location on the iPhone my employer insists I use, and have not downloaded ANY apps. I have Facebook, because I had to get a profile for a work project - but the only uploaded photos are of my pets, and I have minimal personal info in there, with the tightest privacy settings they allow.
Why? Because for years, I had a stalker - a psycho ex-boyfriend, who pursued me over 10 years after I married someone else, changed my name, and changed professions. I ultimately left the country I'm from, and moved to a huge city in another country. I don't allow anyone to even take photos of me, let alone post them. Privacy can be VERY important for those of us who need to maintain a certain level of anonymity.

Re:Technological parallels to innate abilities by grantspassalan · 2012-03-07 15:00 · Score: 1

In such a world of no secrets, if the person in power were evil, then that world would be evil. If the person in power were good, then that whole world would be good. In essence what that means is that whoever has the power to decide what is good and what is evil, would by definition determine the nature of such a world. Free will could still exist, unless the person in power decides by means of that power, to impose his will on everyone regardless of whether they were in agreement or opposition to the definition of good or evil by the one in charge of such a world.

You are going by the assumption that genocide and war mongering are bad, but what if the person or persons in power decide that these things are good? In such a world, conformity to the persons in power would be defined as good and opposition gets defined as evil.

--
A sufficiently advanced simulation is indistinguishable from reality.

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Have We Lost Our Privacy To the Internet?

222 comments