But at least some aspects of your privacy have been gone for years. The fear you feel may be real, but the chances of someone actually looking up the boring details of your life are reassuringly small. As with fear of flying, shark attacks or lightning, your gut may not be getting realistic data from your brain.

This article was originally published with the title Don't Worry about Who's Watching.

5 Comments

1. 1. Yummy Tree Sap 03:31 PM 12/24/10

   I don't like the logic behind a lot of what is said in this editorial. Most of it seems to fall under the "Well, a lot of things aren't very private so it's perfectly OK on the Internet too" train of thought, which I'm not fond of in the least bit. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me to not want details of my life, be it shopping habits or Web sites visited or what have you—no matter how inconsequential—disclosed to anyone if I don't want it to be disclosed. The fact that non-Internet services do the same thing does not make it any less comforting. I hate to be a purveyor of clichés, but you all know the one about what two wrongs do not make.
   
   I will agree that there is also a large amount of overreaction, and the computer algorithms of Gmail's ad service is a great example. This I am totally fine with.
   
   It just seems to me that Internet privacy is not something that should be brushed aside with statements like "It's not like the information is important anyway." In our current age of social networking, I feel like Internet privacy should be inspected more closely, if anything.
   
   Even if most Facebook users do indeed seem to willfully broadcast everything about their lives, and if they're doing that they're bringing any potential consequences upon themselves, that doesn't make it totally acceptable. Some people do not fully comprehend the Web. They understand what it is, but maybe not its vastness. Something like that. You can make an argument that it's not (as an example) Facebook's fault that the average user may not fully understand what they're doing, but I disagree. If they're providing a service to the uneducated masses, they should drive home the importance of being smart on the Internet. E.g., if your profile is public and you post something, EVERYONE IN THE WORLD CAN SEE IT. I can guarantee you that this isn't something the average Facebook user thinks when he or she posts that she's going to be at Starbucks at 7:00 PM tonight, or gives out his or her phone number on a friend's wall or something like that. They see themselves as being in this online bubble, so to speak, and it is very much untrue.
   
   And there are a few other things Facebook has done that even a jaded Internet user such as myself finds questionable, but I won't get into that.
   
   Despite a lot of the concerns over Internet privacy being sensationalist and misinformed, there still are legitimate problems that I think must be re-examined.

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2. 2. DennisJ 05:35 PM 12/28/10

   I find the article on privacy rather simplistic and naïve. Here in the UK there have been numerous cases where putting too much information into the public domain has had negative effects. As examples
   1. Use of Google Earth images to target old churches with lead roofs which are stripped of their sheet lead at night for sale for its scrap value.
   2. Google streetview used by thieves to target houses for burglary (often in towns well away from the thieves’ home territory but with good access to major roads for a quick getaway).
   3. People losing their jobs because of posting negative comments on Facebook about their employer.
   4. Employers searching Facebook for background information about candidates prior to job interviews.
   5. Police now regularly use Facebook in criminal investigations to find links between offenders (probably a useful side effect!).
   6. Use of Facebook to find family information to determine date of birth, mothers' maiden names for identity theft.
   7. Use of Twitter data to show when someone is away from home to assist burglary.
   
   There are numerous other examples where the innovative use of publicly available information can be damaging for the individual.
   

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3. 3. persimmon 02:25 PM 1/17/11

   This article is really simplistic. In less than a year of subscribing, I've learned to take SA articles with a grain of salt. These one pagers pick and choose information and then lump them together to make blanket statements.

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4. 4. vazix 12:04 PM 1/26/11

   This article was based more on world wide conspiracy theories than on who really needs very private information to thief money. Like Dennis stated earlier, thieves can monitor the presence of house owners. But there are young children out in the internet that can be very easily fooled by adults who present themselves as young teenagers and with that much private data already waiting to be used, they can very efficiently become "friends", and extract money. Like saying they need help and so on.

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5. 5. Circle2012 03:06 AM 5/21/12

   Facebook cooperates with intelligence services in the US. One of the investors is from Russia and there was a report in a German TV channel, Phoenix, saying that there are rumours this investor has established contacts to the russian secret service years ago. Social networking services revolutionize marketing, because you can check if personal profiles are up-to-date. Traditional marketing campaigns often lacked in up-to date profiles. Who believes that Facebook just earns money with advertisment and games? Profiles are the profit of companies like google and facebook worldwide. I mean it would be fair, if they pay people for posting information about themselves. All the rest is George Orwell, 1984. Capitalism kills democracy.

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