I’m not being funny. What does it mean to people? For most I would expect that its something to do with people not being able to see you naked or take a shit. But with a world of data collection on everything (and every website) and buying everything with credit cards…. what does it actually mean at this point?
I don’t think the general public quite understands how little ACTUAL privacy there is. You can be found out very, very quickly.
Think of this…. just by following my own websites I’m pretty identifiable
ESPN, Wikipedia, Google Images. Google Search, Slack, Amazon, preschoool website.
From there…. you can see…. I like sports, have a child, you what I searched for, you know what I bought, you know what I was looking at… You can infer how old I am, where i might live from the teams I like. That’s from 5 little sights. This isnt even covering cellphone connections and wifi connections that clearly have a location and history.
So what are we really hiding from? Do we simply want to illusion of privacy or actual privacy? And what will that full privacy look like? Do you want privacy if it makes things inconvenient? Like… real privacy would mean, no storing of logins.no storing of history, no relevant ads, nothing that makes being online customized. Real privacy might mean not buying things online? Do we want to all shop like we’re mob bosses?
It’s tricky for me. I feel like I am really aware and I’m ok with the fact that there is no privacy.
Fundamentally, I think people just want the perception that there is privacy. That the government doesn’t know who you are or Google and Facebook don’t know what you are doing…. but the fact is, they do. And if you break the law, they will catch your ass real fast.
