You make a good point about the pricing asymmetry.
But the point remains that most people are voluntarily, enthusiastically, giving up personal data in exchange for features that they find valuable.
It's hard to see that as a privacy issue.
Being part of the world involves being known. In the proverbial "olde days," when people lived in much smaller communities, everyone knew everyone's business.
Government spying on its own citizens is more problematic. But again, being a citizen, by definition, means aspects of an individual's life are known, and are public data.
This notion of "privacy" is a special, legal, construct. It's meaning in everyday language is provisional.
What is more problematic, IMO, is the excessive use of classification by the Federal Government. This practice is vulnerable to abuse, as it enables legally enforced secrecy to cover up misconduct.
> But the point remains that most people are voluntarily, enthusiastically, giving up personal data in exchange for features that they find valuable
No, that's demonstrably false. Most people have no idea how exactly they are tracked and what information is being collected about them. How would they? It's not always as simple as "Uhh, so I guess if I write an email in Gmail Google can see my email?!" And even then, I think the majority don't actually think that Google does that. "I mean, email is private is it not?!" - is what some people likely think.
Do you actually think that most people know that Facebook and Google track them across the web and know most of the sites they visit when they aren't even on Google or Facebook's websites, through Google Analytics code and the Like button (without having to press on it)?
How long before the technology and bandwidth becomes advanced enough that it's actually possible to capture all conversations from mics 24/7 of the people around a device, and store it for analysis in the cloud? Do you think people expect that to happen right now, or are "enthusiastic" about it? No, they don't and aren't.
In fact some call this idea a "conspiracy theory." But ten years from now we'll probably discover Facebook or Amazon has already been doing it for a few years, and a few more years later the privacy invasion apoligists will start saying "well yeah, of course they listen to your microphone, that's why it's there! To analyze your context and give you even more targeted products and ads!"
Companies first abuse new ways to track people (I guess they would call that "innovation"), and maybe 10 years later, regulators catch-up to it and force them to pull-back their tracking a little bit, after the information has long been stored and used in their databases.
But the point remains that most people are voluntarily, enthusiastically, giving up personal data in exchange for features that they find valuable.
It's hard to see that as a privacy issue.
Being part of the world involves being known. In the proverbial "olde days," when people lived in much smaller communities, everyone knew everyone's business.
Government spying on its own citizens is more problematic. But again, being a citizen, by definition, means aspects of an individual's life are known, and are public data.
This notion of "privacy" is a special, legal, construct. It's meaning in everyday language is provisional.
What is more problematic, IMO, is the excessive use of classification by the Federal Government. This practice is vulnerable to abuse, as it enables legally enforced secrecy to cover up misconduct.