With privacy be careful what you wish for. I for one am tired of the same privacy argument from the same folks who are the most public of us. Privacy is the new boogie man akin to war, corporations and Sarah Palin. The Europeans, more specifically the Germans, are pretty ridiculous about it. Google just had to pay a pound of flesh to the FTC over Google Buzz privacy issues at launch that affect 2 people. Even Pandora, I service I love because it’s free, is facing suit over user information it may have transmitted to advertisers.
NEWS FLASH GEEKNERATI: normal people could care less about privacy because there is no real utility in being private and paranoid. I fail to understand this. Of all the things to worry fork about, online privacy should be the least of your worries. Let’s stop using the red herring of privacy when things like Color hit the scene. Color is an innovative attempt at connecting people serendipitously, don’t kill it with your neurosis’s about privacy.
People in India don’t care. In fact India is on a massive effort to give everyone of their 1.2 billion citizens the “mark of the beast.† A massive data collection effort that will be a boon to effective governing of a billion people,  and if their smart to future advertisers. Sinister, isn’t it. Even most Chinese don’t care much about privacy and they live in the most technologically oppressive and censored regimes on earth.
The point is most of these “privacy†violation are done for one reason, to sell you shit.  The future of the web as a continuing force for good depends on and will survive going forward on ads that are targeted socially and geo-spatially. Wonder why Pandora seems to (but not always) target its ads between songs just for you in your area? Why can Google offer the Android operating system for free? Why is Facebook the largest free repository of social interaction on the globe? Ads.
We have to pay one way or the other. We can’t have our cake and eat it too. We pay with our private information and what we receive back is utility.  If we allow a loud minority to persuade governments of an absolute right to privacy, we loose what the web is, a relatively free realm of “open†exchange. The point is the zealots have truly subjective views on privacy. One size doesn’t fit all. Truth be told I think it there might be a better way of looking at privacy. The brooking institute has an excellent name for it: databuse. This is an attempt to more objectively codify “privacy†and shape it for the modern era. Long read, but a great thought piece.
I also see a generational shift when it comes to this. I have teenage nieces and nephews whom are quite the exhibitionist when it comes to what they share. I have tried my best to train them in the art of discretion, but my notions of sharing and theirs are miles a part (or almost a generation a part). Â They simply don’t see it they way we do. I only point this out because yes we need to have a discussion on this, but it should be more in educating future users of connected services on how to use their private information as a currency. Â We must encourage the world to share and add to the mosaic of human knowledge in a smart and responsible manner, not to scare the shit out of them.