
Ask HN: I'm not motivated enough to take privacy seriously - atomicnumber1
I see all this posts about Google (with it&#x27;s massive services), Twitter, Instagram, [any other sites], collecting data and building a profile of you to serve you personalised ads and maybe other stuff. I understand that. But, apparently not enough! as I can&#x27;t seem to leave the convenience of it. Maybe it&#x27;s because it isn&#x27;t tangible?; as in I can&#x27;t visualise how all this will affect my day to day life, so I always give in to the comfort. Can you please convince me otherwise?
======
Thriptic
Real time pricing and personalized pricing. The more marketers learn about
you, the more they will be able to set custom prices for you that may not be
in your benefit. Think airline tickets, that's the model people are after.

What if I told you that in 10 minutes you could get most of the way to great
privacy without leaving Google services or social networks at all? Also your
pages will load faster, you will be paywalled less often, and you will see a
security benefit.

1\. Browser containerization, use one browser for browsing normally and never
sign into accounts, use the other for only signing into accounts, no normal
browsing

2\. Install Ublock origin and privacy badger extensions

3\. Get a VPN (ok, this takes more like 10 minutes by itself) and use it

4\. Only browse in incognito mode and set your browser to delete history

5\. Make firefox and brave your browsers and turn on their default privacy
features

6\. Continue to chat on social networks and Google but use their encrypted
products (Allo incognito, WhatsApp, FB's thing etc)

~~~
francisofascii
I am afraid grocery stores will start this. (Or perhaps they already do.)
Virtual sales for certain people for specific products. But it is hard not to
pass up the huge savings the "bonus" card gets you.

~~~
TheBeardKing
Kroger does this with their Kroger card. They send you coupons for things in
your purchase history, and similar items they think you might like.

~~~
EADGBE
Oh, the humanity!

------
kasperni
Simple, read this article about China's Social Credit System:

[http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-18/china-social-
credit-a-...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-18/china-social-credit-a-
model-citizen-in-a-digital-dictatorship/10200278)

This is not going to happen overnight. But an inch at a time, if people do not
take privacy seriously.

~~~
NikolaNovak
Together with the related Black Mirror episode, which I wasn't able to finish
because it made me too sick to my stomach - too realistic, too close, too
terrifying :S

(Season 3, Episode 1, for example:
[https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/24/13379204/black-mirror-
se...](https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/24/13379204/black-mirror-
season-3-episode-1-nosedive-recap))

------
earenndil
A lot of things you can do have a fixed cost ie they won't affect your life at
all in the long run, just once. If you download a new browser (firefox),
change your search engine (to startpage, duckduckgo, etc.), install an
ad/tracker blocker (ublock0, privacy badger). This won't result in a loss of
convenience, it'll just take a few hours and then you can continue living your
life exactly as before. Obviously, there are things you can do to protect your
privacy further, but just doing this will be a huge net positive with no
drawback.

------
demygale
This is a totally acceptable attitude. It’s your data, you can give it away or
sell it or whatever. It’s your choice.

It matters to me so I pay attention to news about products and companies with
regard to privacy.

Privacy, like free speech, is a universal human right. The fact that you
choose to share information doesn’t mean you lose that right. Any more than
not speaking does not mean you lose the right to free speech.

~~~
atomicnumber1
But, here's the thing, I don't know what I'm giving away (or selling) and what
repercussions it can have on me. With free speech (and other human rights) I
can exactly see what it means to have it as a human right. With Privacy, that
line becomes hazy and I'm trying to make it clearer. makes sense?

------
exog
Just have a quick look to China. Europe and America are going in the same
direction.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System)

------
alacer
I agree with your lack of motivation because ultimately everything is
connected so there cannot be any privacy actually. One thing this means is
that privacy is egoity and the ego is a mental fabrication, totally illusory,
however of convenience with a body in the world. In other words, don't worry
about it. There is an assumption of practical common sense along with this
viewpoint. Namely there is no expectation of publicising your credit card
numbers, passwords, and the like. Practically it is usually best avoiding
social media, minimizing the number of login accounts and often refraining
from commenting on websites. In summary, if you really know who you are, there
is no danger of being discovered, no danger of being omitted, nothing to lose,
nothing to gain, nothing to keep private, nothing to publicize.

~~~
BadDebug
Absolutely right. Privacy was an Enlightenment concept granted to so-called
"Enlightenment thinkers" which were really just egotistical white Europeans.
It was a mistake for a country as great as the USA to think that privacy
should be appropriated from a gray and troubling past.

------
seymour333
I think it's important to take time and think about some of the potential
outcomes of bulk data collection.

Take this for example: there is currently a trend in the insurance industry to
require an activity tracking device in order to activate certain life
insurance plan discounts and other benefits. The data pulled from the activity
trackers is almost certainly going to be used to enhance profitability for
insurance providers, which is something that eventually will have a negative
impact on some portion of people who buy life insurance.

This data might not affect first generation subscribers, so many people are
comfortable to surrender it. Somewhere down the line people are going to have
increased premiums or will be denied insurance altogether based on what is
currently being collected. There is also the chance that the children of the
people who are willingly providing this data will have higher insurance costs
based on data collected from their parents, or grandparents.

The bottom line is that every company that is engaging in data collection is,
or soon will be, using it to gain an unfair advantage against consumers. The
consequences may seem abstract or far off, but every data point surrendered is
a will have a cost at some point in the future. I'd rather not help large
corporations take advantage of me.

~~~
godot
From what you said though, it sounds like when you _opt out_ of data tracking,
you're at a disadvantage from those who are being tracked. (i.e. those being
activity-tracked and proved to be healthy get lower insurance premiums) This
seems to be the opposite of what OP wants -- be motivated to stop being
tracked.

At a higher level view, this appears to be a prisoner's dilemma. If everyone
opts out, everyone is eventually better off. But some people will opt in now,
and get the short term benefits (lower insurance premiums). In the long term,
everyone will be worse off.

~~~
seymour333
That's exactly the point I'm trying to make to OP. Think about the future and
opt out!

It's a super tough sell for most people though, so the majority is likely
going to just opt in, or remain opted in by default. Which I suppose means
that we should all just try to reap whatever benefits we can now and wish our
future selves all the best when it comes time to legislate this whole thing.

------
AnimalMuppet
There's three kinds of privacy that I can see: privacy against a hacker,
privacy against Google et al, and privacy against the government.

The first kind I think you care about. You don't want your computer being part
of a botnet. You don't want a hacker running the camera on your phone. You
don't want a hacker watching as you type your password for your bank account.

The second kind, privacy against Google, I can't convince you that you care
about. I might even be able to make a case that you don't. Let's say I'm on a
business trip, and I need to eat dinner. I ask Google for restaurants. I'm
going to get better answers if Google knows where I am (which is a privacy
intrusion). I'm going to get even better answers if Google knows what kind of
foods I like (which is also a privacy intrusion). Those privacy intrusions
_actually provide me value_ (at least in some situations). Maybe I don't want
to stop them.

Privacy against the government... that ship has sailed. They have the
capability to find out _everything_ if they decide to. The battle is
political, to keep them from deciding that they want to without adequate (that
is, criminal) cause, and without due process.

~~~
atomicnumber1
2\. I'm wondering (as others have outlined) that, granted they do give me
value today at the risk of my privacy, but what about the future, what if
there motives change, that can affect me in insidious ways.

------
hluska
I would like to, but the more I think about it, the more envious I feel. It
sounds like you have a peaceful life, or could if you'd stop worrying about
not being worried about privacy! :)

I think that privacy is important for a couple of reasons:

1) I don't trust marketers with data. My education is in marketing, so I
understand the mindset. Hell, I know I could make significantly more in the
marketing industry, but I don't want to be socialized into that mindset.

2) Privacy provides a private space upon which we can build identity. Identity
provides the foundation for the rest of our human rights. I have a very good
friend who happens to be a trans woman. She describes her process as having
the freedom to take baby steps alone in the privacy of her home until she had
a strong enough identity to start to be more out to friends, then family and
finally just out.

3) I have a child and feel I should err on the side of her privacy until she's
old enough to decide to trade privacy for free stuff.

But, if you can convince me that it's not worth worrying about these things,
I'm open to hearing your arguments. I'd like to be convinced I'm wrong!

------
erikig
Our right to privacy should not be confused with access to absolute privacy.
Absolute privacy is not possible in today's society without significant
tradeoffs. Instead, privacy requires that in our dealings with institutions,
we can have the following questions addressed:

\- Who is collecting information about me and my family?

\- What exactly is being collected?

\- Why is it being collected?

\- How long will it be kept?

\- Who is it shared with?

\- Can we opt out?

\- Can we request to be forgotten and how?

You should take privacy seriously in as much as you should demand your
institutions to disclose this information to you and allow you to make an
informed decision as to the tradeoffs you may be making.

------
013a
Maybe you trust Google or Facebook or Microsoft. That's fine. And probably
sane; they're large corporations with huge numbers of processes and procedures
in place to make sure data is used in ways that is at least parallel with
their terms of use.

Do you trust that these companies will _never_ be hacked? In a world where,
this year, we discovered that a fundamental optimization in the literal
silicon of processors, which went unnoticed for a decade, and affected every
modern processor on the planet, allowed for some level of unintentional data
leak, do well-meaning intentions even matter?

Just a few days ago, Twitter announced that an unintentional bug leaked
private DMs to third-party app developers. Oh darn, _we 're sorry_, we didn't
_mean_ for that to happen, it just did.

So, do you trust any of your personal information being obtained by any random
person on the planet?

This is our world, its just taking everyone a bit of time to realize it: If
you have information stored on the internet, it _will_ get leaked eventually.
Then at that point, its just a matter of having enough attention for one
person who wants to do you harm find it. Do you have no enemies at all?

Oh you don't? Are you alright with your credit card and social security
numbers being available for anyone to grab? Look at that, you _do_ have
enemies, they just don't care about you personally, all they care about is
themselves, and they'll hurt you to accomplish that. Let's say you're a woman.
Are you alright with your address being publicly available? How about your
Google Calendar? Snapchat real-time location? Feed from your Nest security
camera? Didn't think so.

"Privacy" is not when a company says they care about your privacy. Its when
they fucking implement End-To-End Encryption and physically _deny_ themselves
even the ability to see your data. Any company who says they care about
privacy but isn't doing this is fucking lying to you, full stop, no
exceptions, because if they really cared then they (A) wouldn't put
concessions on their position like "well we _need_ to be able to see this data
for X", and (B) would have the humility to recognize that the world is more
vulnerable than its ever been before, and they will be hacked, its just a
matter of when.

~~~
thrmsforbfast
_> Do you trust that these companies will never be hacked?_

I trust them more than I trust myself, unfortunately.

I generally try to avoid uploading unnecessary/extra data. But email and
remote document access aren't optional, and while I don't trust BigCorp to do
security right, I also know that I don't have the resources to do it right for
myself...

~~~
013a
That's fair. You shouldn't trust yourself, or the companies, because your
trust will be betrayed one day. Everyone is a little incompetent, its just a
matter of when.

That's why End To End Encryption is the best solution we have, which balances
usability with good security. It reduces the surface of attack to just the
encryption algorithms, their implementation, and the keys, which is
substantially easier to audit and doesn't change when the products evolve. It
also allows you to say "fuck it, have the data, its encrypted so who cares".
Finally, it logically separates the attack surface into two distinct parts;
attackers need both the keys and the data to do harm, either alone does
nothing.

In practice, trust comes down to "can I protect the keys". That's something I
can trust myself to manage well, and plenty of companies sell solutions to
make it easy (ex: Apple and the secure enclave of your phone).

~~~
thrmsforbfast
Any suggestions for how to combine end-to-end encryption with document storage
in a way that still allows me to access documents on my phone/tablet/computer
and also share documents with others?

Unfortunately end-to-end encryption for email is completely impossible because
almost everyone I interact with via email does not know how to use gpg...

------
Siecje
Have you downloaded the data that Facebook and Google have on you?

I've heard of people doing this and realizing that they have information that
you wouldn't think they would have.

------
giancarlostoro
Equifax should be scary enough, now imagine all your intimate and personal
data available to anyone if any of those sites got hacked.

~~~
CaptainZapp
_now imagine all your intimate and personal data available to anyone if any of
those sites got hacked._

Or sold to the highest bidder. Google seems especially anxious to really screw
their users those days. Just imagine the money that can be made by selling
your most intimate details to insurers.

------
gmuslera
How many years you lived? How many more you think you'll do? Is not the next
day that should worry you, but all the ones from there onwards. And the people
you will care about, including the ones that survives you.

The thing is that you don't know what could happen, but digital records are
there for the future, and what happens on it, different policies, different
social trends, different governments and so on.

Things are changing fast. If is profitable, will be exploited. And is not that
some person will find your personal data. AIs and bots will do it with
everything they can access. And could affect you in ways you can't predict
now, with effects that may be very unpleasant.

This may be far fetched, what could happen today, if you were older? Getting
poor? No medic coverage? Lost house or pensions? No insurance when something
wrong happen? Can't get any work? Now extrapolate for unknown conditions in a
not so far but still unpredictable future.

~~~
atomicnumber1
Something that'll happen in the future is harder to make it tangible (that
china `credit score` thing was way scary though). Also, it's difficult to
figure out like what should and shouldn't be exposed on the internet. And,
regarding the loved ones, everyone needs to be on this thing together to make
it work. For example like, I try to be privacy conscious, while my friend
exposes everything about me on say Facebook doesn't really help me.

------
DarkWiiPlayer
The thing is, it probably won't affect your life. There's millions of people
willingly giving up their information to the internet, and it's not like every
single one of them, or even a majority, will face any consequences.

But what if you suddenly decided to change the world and become a politician?
Well, I sure hope you never directly googled for some particular genre of
pornography, specially if it's something that's widely frowned upon.

And that's just one example. The thing is, if Google, Facebook, etc. ever want
something from you, they probably have the power to destroy your life if you
don't give it to them.

Do you really trust each and every tech company with access to your data that
they won't ever use it to cause you some sort of harm?

And what about governments? No, I am not talking about your fancy democratic
government, I'm sure others will point out what's wrong with that assumption.
I'm talking about those "russian hackers" the USA is so confused about.

Chances are, google knows enough about you to piece together who you're likely
to vote for. What if they start targetting you with ads meant to mobilize
voters, because they know you're likely to vote the "right" party? Or what if
they bombard you with stories about how democracy is broken anyway, and
elections are manipulated, because they think you might vote for the "wrong"
party?

"But google would never do that" I hear you say... "And if they did, _I_
wouldn't fall for it"

If you knew about it you wouldn't, but you wouldn't know. These things do
work, otherwise google wouldn't be so filthy rich with their dozens of
products that they run at a deficit for years. Ads work. Online manipulation
works.

What does that have to do with the "russian hackers" I mentioned above? Well,
what do hackers usually do? Right, they hack. What if google gets hacked?
Suddenly another nations government has access to millions of (insert your
country)s citizens to manipulate.

"But google won't get hacked, and neither would facebook"

Sure, I won't hack either of them and neither will you. But we're not the
Chinese government, with as much money to throw at a room of programmers as it
takes for them to make it happen.

And what about third party contractors? They may not have the same security
standards or resources to protect your data.

I could go on and on about this, but I'll leave that for others.

In conclusion: Privacy _does_ matter maybe in the same way climate change
does. It's not like driving your car for an hour will make it one degree
hotter all of a sudden. It's a complex process that nobody _fully_ understands
and that's very hard to grasp, yet everybody who spends time researching the
subject certainly agrees that there _is_ great importance in it and it _does_
affect all of humanity on a scale beyond what we see in our day to day lives.

EDIT:

Why did I even bother writing all of that? Just read
[this]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi))
and you should get an idea of why you should value complete and unconditional
privacy.

~~~
Ron23way
tldr; no one is going to be convinced by long text that have merit, if he
never reads it.

~~~
DarkWiiPlayer
well, people have been saying these things for years.

Other people have not cared for all those years.

And, to be honest, I don't think that will change anytime soon. People will
only start caring about privacy when it's gone completely.

------
DarkWiiPlayer
This might have gotten some more attention if the question was "I don't need
online privacy, change my mind"

------
HiroshiSan
Maybe it won't affect you, but it might affect your parents, your siblings,
your children.

An easy scenario I can think of is extortion.

~~~
nightfly
Realistically Google and Instagram aren't gonna extort anyones parents.

~~~
DarkWiiPlayer
Maybe they do. Maybe you just don't know about it because they're extorting
everybody who knows about it. How can you be sure?

Yeah I know, I'm exaggerating of course. But you shouldn't just give others a
weapon they can use against you.

------
gaspoweredcat
i cant, others have tried to convince me and i know how to do security very
well, ive set up many a system for friends who are the sort of people who put
tape over their cameras (why do you do this people? an image of your gormless
mug staring at a screen is no use to anyone, if you want to do something more
useful disable or remove your microphone)

even if anyone had all my info they couldnt really do much with it, im not
creditworthy in any way, i own pretty much nothing and i have no enemies or
any reason for anyone to try and destroy me somehow.

personally im more than happy to have people collect data on my boring little
life in exchange for free services online etc so like you i really dont see a
way it could negatively affect me

~~~
atomicnumber1
I get that. I really do. I'm just worried about how it might affect me (and my
loved ones) in the near future.

------
jd_one
It's about managing risk, really.

While hopefully it's fairly likely that the profiles which are being
constructed based on our online habits won't negatively affect our day to day
life, there's a chance that they will and that risk is worth managing.

One scenario to look at is the past behaviour of other big companies during
war time or during periods of authoritarian regime when the incentives align
between the govt and private entities. There are too many examples from WW2,
but also look at how willing many companies were to get their hands on (and
share) information regarding figures in the various labour movements
throughout English (and American) history, even the ones which weren't
explicitly communist. Another example is the big (european car?)
manufacturers' cooperation with the regime in Argentina in the '70s who
weren't really hiding the fact that they were disappearing the people who
these companies were doxxing for identifying with certain social / political
movements.

It's just worth keeping in mind that anything you do now which might identify
you with a certain group could come back to haunt you if that group becomes
the new Reds Under The Bed in 1, 2 or 5 election cycles. And that at this
stage you are doing what you are doing with the full knowledge that everything
is being retained for use at the discretion of these tech companies.

So I disagree with the idea that it only matters of you ever 'make it'. It
also matters if you have shown patterns of behaviour which suggest that you
identify with a group that makes it.

That said, I definitely don't do enough either. I only really take the simple
steps that others have outlined here.

~~~
atomicnumber1
Interesting. Where can I learn about this (history)?

------
newscracker
You don't understand all the complexities in how legislation is created or why
the executive does certain things. You may have disagreements with many of
those laws and actions — if not now, you will the next time power changes
hands/parties.

How can you prevent yourself from being manipulated _all the time_? How can
you prevent yourself from being extorted or blackmailed for something society
(or your circle) doesn't approve of? How can you prevent the rest of the
citizens in your country from being manipulated _all the time_? How can you
make sure that investigative journalists and activists don't "disappear" or
don't get shutdown with scandals or shaming or blackmail? How can you know the
truth about whoever these people are fighting against? The foundation for all
these is that you need, and everyone needs, privacy and strong privacy
protections. You cannot have a free society without it...but only a mirage of
it where you believe whatever those who are in positions of power and
influence tell you to believe. They could be political, corporate, religious,
or other people/groups/entities. They might even be from another country.

There's something called "balance of power". Usually, governments are more
powerful and have more ways to control or subjugate common people (even in
free democracies). One of the things (not the only thing) to counterbalance
that is privacy for common people (so information can flow easily). The same
can be said of large corporations too, who are usually so rich that they can
lobby or nudge or push politicians to do things to their bidding (something
you as an individual may never be able to). If some corporations rely on
privacy intrusions to grow larger and gain more influence, obviously we need
strong protections from them.

Privacy usually doesn't seem to matter to those who are privileged enough to
or able to live a comfortable life without trouble from other people. But once
you face issues or take a deeper look at those who are not as privileged, you
may understand why this is such a big deal. Those people are the ones most
vulnerable to power, corruption, etc., and they're also the ones who cannot
fight by themselves in many instances without the protection that privacy
offers to their supporters.

If you're somewhat well off that you can afford to spend some money (even by
foregoing eating out a couple of times a month), then you can surely opt for
(paid or donationware) services that aren't relying on your personal
information to stay in business.

[Anyone further interested can also check out my profile here for a little
more on this topic]

~~~
atomicnumber1
Thanks! will do.

------
Ron23way
I don't care about your privacy enough to convince you. Just click agree on
everything and don't be surprised when your pics, texts or name ends up in
laxative ad, condom ad, whatever else ad.

Oh atomicnumber1 just cured this latest STD, only if he would use our gummy
friends he would not have to spend 200$ on antibiotics.

Even though you just clicked some link to read article about STDs and never
had intercourse.

------
snarfy
Ads are evil.

The term 'brand' was borrowed from the cattle industry, where they take a red
hot piece of metal and burn an image permanently into a cow.

It's the purpose nearly all advertising serves - to establish a brand. That
means they've permanently burned an image into your mind by constantly
bombarding you with it.

I consider it a form of assault.

------
PaulHoule
It is complex.

Personally I am not so afraid of the NSA; I know the people there have some
ethics and internal controls. Do I trust them completely? No. But they are one
of many threats.

France, Iran, Israel, Russia, and the U.K. are just a few of countries other
than the U.S. that run assassination, spycraft, 'terrorism' and other sneaky
pete operations worldwide.

They are threats, and so are many criminal organizations, individuals, etc.
The chief danger of the NSA is that they could be hiding a set of master keys
for a national encryption standard which could be stolen by a person who, like
Edward Snowden, breaches internal controls and then who knows what happens...

On top of all those spooks (maybe 30% psychopaths) you have the people who
want to steal everything that isn't tied down (maybe 60% psychopaths), and the
people who face insane pressures to put up numbers for investors every quarter
(90% psychopaths).

There is the real and imagined threats of J. Edgar Hoover style dossiers, but
also privacy as a "right to be left alone" which could mean that no you don't
want to get certain solicitors showing up at your door or to be followed
around by shoes everywhere you go. (Just knowing you are being watched is
intimidating, I am going through that right now with a Siamese cat that thinks
it is better than other cats and will chase them away by staring at them.)

Then there is medical privacy, genetic privacy and a bunch of issues that
revolve around that. For instance you have these people who get a $100 DNA
test and find out that they are one of 200 people who have the same sperm
donor father.

And of course there is a trade-off between public and private interests.

The "right to be forgotten" is controversial because it is frequently invoked
by embezzlers, con artists and other white-collar criminals who many of us
fear will offend again if they get the opportunity. The NSA can say that
cryptoanalytic warfare has helped us sink Nazi subs, find Che Guevara, etc.
Credit Bureaus enable you to do business with people you don't know over the
phone and not be deathly afraid of getting stiffed.

So it is a lot to think about.

~~~
DarkWiiPlayer
> The NSA can say that cryptoanalytic warfare has helped us sink Nazi subs,
> find Che Guevara, etc.

Guns have helped the allies defeat the Nazis. Bombing civilian targets to
break morale did the same. I'm sure torture was also used here and there to
get Hans to tell them where the gestapo hides their sauerkraut.

My point is, bad stuff can be used for good. That doesn't make it right, and
even less does it mean we should allow others to use that same bad stuff with
bad intentions.

------
Mc_Big_G
Let's say you're a liberal, you hate Trump and everything he stands for as
well as the Republican party. You post a lot of anti-Trump and anti-Republican
content on social media and discuss it even more candidly with friends through
IMs and email.

The mid-terms come and it turns out that Russia has perfected their hacking of
our voting machines to the point that even when analyzing the data, it can't
be proven. Republicans maintain control and therefore Trump as well. Congrats,
you not live in a completely fascist state!

Whatever reigns were left holding Trump back are now gone as well as any kind
of checks and balance braking system. Trump leverages NSA data and powers to
root out and purge any liberals in federal agencies and replaces them with
alt-right Republicans. The justice department becomes the revenge department.
Laws are passed giving the government complete access to all private company
data (as if they don't already have it).

Trump can now leverage the full power of the deathstar. i.e. full access to
the data, tools and power of the NSA, FBI, CIA, ICE, ETC... It's just a matter
of time before one particularly enterprising alt-right official run the
"SELECT * from citizens WHERE has_criticized_trump = true;" query. Congrats,
you're now a political prisoner! I hope they treat you better than ICE treats
immigrant children!

~~~
beaconstudios
what is this, Man in the High Castle?

------
WorldMaker
You may be right that privacy may not matter any more, and/or that the battle
for privacy itself is already lost.

To provide an alternative approach to consider, there's always the questions
of "qui bono?" and "quis custodiet ipsos custodes?". (There's are quite old
questions, if the fact that they are often served in Latin wasn't a dead
giveaway.) "Who benefits?" and "who observes the observers?"

Are you getting enough value from people using your private information?

Do you know who is using your private information? Who is keeping them
honest/lawful/good?

Those are very tough questions, and a lot of the responses here certainly will
tell you that the answers aren't in your favor. Though that's for you to
judge, you may be benefitting enough from your Google services and social
media, that maybe that's a fair trade-off for you. You may feel that market
controls, capitalism, shareholders, may hold enough interest in keeping
corporate entities accountable that you aren't worried what they are doing
with your private information. _That 's a perfectly acceptable stance._ It's
largely the default stance these days, which is why so many posts are so
fervently pro-privacy, because that's the stance that needs the most
defending.

Here's the thing though, even if you agree that maybe privacy is an intangible
benefit that is already "lost" and not coming back, there are still
interesting answers to "qui bono?" and "quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" that
push towards the opposite direction: fighting for less privacy overall, but
more transparency/accountability.

"Who benefits?" Why should Google make so much money selling advertisers to
you personally? Why not disintermediate that situation and sell yourself
directly to advertisers?

"Who observes the observers?" Who is it checking that Google is only using
your private information for ads? Can you demand that Google explain
everything they do with your private information, including when and how it
gets "anonymized" or "aggregated" into other metrics? How much of your privacy
data goes through open source code that you can evaluate for yourself? Can you
access the foundations of their machine learning algorithms and help find
biases as a user, as a general part of the "crowd", without being an employee
or government auditor?

One possible demand in a surveillance state is to dismantle the surveillance,
and if privacy is already lost, that's a doomed battle. The other possible
demand is sousveillance: "I should be able to watch you back."

A good book of essays on the subject, if you want to explore the idea further:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society)

~~~
atomicnumber1
You make a very compelling argument. I'm also wondering, that yes, currently
our interests are aligned (privacy intrusion for value), what if they're no
longer aligned?, Or what if they're compromised? Well, I'm screwed then (as
others have outlined).

~~~
WorldMaker
Sousveillance is a useful goal because it would provide greater opportunity to
know when your interests are no longer aligned. Right now a company may
publish a privacy policy and say one thing about their interests, but do
another and not admit to it. An authority bigger than them might hold them
accountable (governments, shareholders), but what if users could be their own
watchdogs?

As for compromises, typically the assumptions in Transparency situations is
that the damage is mitigated if it was already transparent (everyone already
knows, or already has some other way to access that data, so compromise is
less of a big deal). Admittedly, there's a lot of cultural hurdles involved to
make _everything_ transparent, including "deweaponizing" a lot of people's
secrets/getting used to the fact that everyone probably has skeletons in their
closet and to stop using that against each other.

I'm not even sure that full transparency could work in the real world [1], but
starting from the assumption that privacy is dead anyway, transparency options
seem some of the best alternatives to pursue (instead of trying to put all the
monsters back into Pandora's box, let's try for hope and compromise).

[1] An interesting argument is that full transparency was the actual state of
early tribal humankind. Gossip networks held tribes together. Everyone knew
everyone's else's business, just because of human social dynamics and the way
that we know tight-knit communities work. From that perspective privacy is a
"modern" thing, and possibly even a fluke of modern civilization, though
certainly many here would classify it a feature more than a bug.

