For most users, the loss of control of there data and the other privacy issues that concern us arent really all that important. What matters to them is how easy the software is to use.
Compare creating a gmail account to downloading and installing a normal mail client, setting up the pop / smtp servers and so on. In setting up a gmail account the hardest part is deciding on what your address should be (or reading the captcha).
The trouble with most technical people is that they assume everyone else to be technical, when this is rarely the case.
Hell I'm a programmer by trade and I cant even be bothered finding out how to put line breaks in my post!
While most companies don't need to keep this level of data, there are a number who do.
Think of banks and credit card companies who need to store every transaction that happens on their cards. Or supermarkets who store a record of every item anyone purchases. There are a number of business's who need to store hundreds of billions of transactions.
Slashdot Mirror
And this is why I love slashdot!
For most users, the loss of control of there data and the other privacy issues that concern us arent really all that important. What matters to them is how easy the software is to use. Compare creating a gmail account to downloading and installing a normal mail client, setting up the pop / smtp servers and so on. In setting up a gmail account the hardest part is deciding on what your address should be (or reading the captcha). The trouble with most technical people is that they assume everyone else to be technical, when this is rarely the case. Hell I'm a programmer by trade and I cant even be bothered finding out how to put line breaks in my post!
While most companies don't need to keep this level of data, there are a number who do. Think of banks and credit card companies who need to store every transaction that happens on their cards. Or supermarkets who store a record of every item anyone purchases. There are a number of business's who need to store hundreds of billions of transactions.