There’s an interesting dance between privacy and social media.
On the one hand, millions of people around the world eagerly use social Web sites daily (sometimes hourly) to inform friends about their lives and read about the lives of their friends.
On the other hand, they’re dismayed when governments and enterprises manage to get hold of their personal information from their writings or from metadata and use if for their own purposes.
Duane Craig has an essay on this in which he pulls together a number of sources, including academics, who seem to back his contention that absolute privacy online is a fantasy.
Similarly, people online expect organizations to be responsible with personal data. That’s why everyone accepts absolute privacy online is a fantasy — but that doesn’t mean they don’t have high expectations.
As Craig writes, “Each individual and business ultimately has to decide if the online privacy they are trading is worth what they are getting in return.”
