> I think the guiding principle for Mary...should be that she doesn't type anything into a web browser that she doesn't want publicly known
That was Eric Schmidt's answer a while back too, but I'm not sure it's adequate anymore.
As PG has remarked, more and more of the tools we use to interact with the world are becoming software (and as all software is increasingly web-enabled & socialized, that's often indistinguishable from "typing it into a browser" for purposes of this discussion.)
We're essentially telling people who have very legitimate reasons for wanting to protect their privacy that their other option is to become a Luddite hermit. Is that really the best we can do?
It's a tough question to answer as an entrepreneur, because it probably is a much smaller opportunity, and by definition doesn't enjoy the same viral loops - - but I wish it's one that we as an industry would spend more time on.
"We're essentially telling people who have very legitimate reasons for wanting to protect their privacy that their other option is to become a Luddite hermit. Is that really the best we can do?"
Not exactly. We're telling people that they're not going to have privacy, period. We're assuming that privacy is dead. You might think it's still something that can be salvaged, but lots of people assume that the world is moving to less privacy whatever we do. Which is why we should be education people from the start that, whether we like it or not, anything they type into a computer is basically public.
I especially like Scoble's thoughts on this. He says, rightly I believe, that anything that is a copy-paste away from becoming public, isn't really private at all. He also had the fun adventure of having many private emails being made public as part of lawsuits against Microsoft.
Well, this is a broader issue than I was addressing in the grandparent. There may well be devices which we regard as essential to modern life which are potentially infringing on our privacy (I occasionally wonder whether my android phone is listening to me... it would be so easy to bug it.) But facebook is not essential to modern life. At least, I get along without it just fine.
That was Eric Schmidt's answer a while back too, but I'm not sure it's adequate anymore.
As PG has remarked, more and more of the tools we use to interact with the world are becoming software (and as all software is increasingly web-enabled & socialized, that's often indistinguishable from "typing it into a browser" for purposes of this discussion.)
We're essentially telling people who have very legitimate reasons for wanting to protect their privacy that their other option is to become a Luddite hermit. Is that really the best we can do?
It's a tough question to answer as an entrepreneur, because it probably is a much smaller opportunity, and by definition doesn't enjoy the same viral loops - - but I wish it's one that we as an industry would spend more time on.