Apr 24, 08:14 PM
Utne Reader Blog Post features Peep and Surveillance
Posted by Hal Niedzviecki under:tags: corporate data collection, government, privacy invasion
Interesting post in the Utne Reader Science and Technology blog. It starts talking about apes spying on each other having sex and moves on through Facebook’s Beacon debacle, “the attention economy”, the new book by Daniel Solove about reputation, and finally discussion about how all this is leading to less and less in terms of expectation when it comes to privacy.
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Mark McCawley Says:May 3, 12:29 AM
Something occurred to me when I first joined MySpace and then Facebook, and was asked to agree to their terms of use: which ultimately meant giving up a large chunk of my personal privacy in exchange for the chance to join their ever growing social network club. To this end, I acknowledge that both government and corporate interests have gained an unhealthy foothold in the sphere of my personal life as they search for particular demographics and potential wrongdoers. Yes, files are filling up faster than ever now, with more and more information about us than we ever thought collectible. And each time we agree to the terms of a new application on Facebook, we are allowing them full access to everything, and everyone, connected to our profile pages. Why don’t we all just quit? Go cold turkey? Because we are addicted to this virtual connectivity, all of us, and we know it. And we want more. It’s the first thing we check in the morning when we turn the computer on (if it is ever turned off, that is), and the last thing we check before turning in for the day. It’s become a virtual form of crack. Some people spend their entire day networking, collecting hundreds, if not thousands, of “friends” for what purpose is frankly beyond me, really. Still, I think I have discovered a flaw in this system. In a society where our privacy is becoming less and less private, how do we keep government and corporate interests from knowing who we really are? Simple. We bury them in useless information about ourselves. Is there a software program anywhere on this planet that can tell the difference between truth and fiction? I didn’t think so.