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If you don't mind me asking what is so important about privacy?

What harm does public data have to you? Couldn't one just ignore the ads? You can't see anyone watching you, is public data good for public records? (I'm just curious). I know this sounds weird but is public data good for historical preservation and knowledge increasing the importance of the individual? And does public data lead to better products?

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  • Because I find it unsettling on a personal level when my wife and I, in the privacy of our home away from the world have a conversation where we make a joke about buying a banjo, and then every day for the next three weeks everywhere I go is flooded with targeted banjo ads. Verbal conversations, away from everything but our phones and computers.

    Because I find it unsettling when I go to a site I have never gone to before and it greets me with my name and already knows where I live with the shipping details even though I clicked "I do not consent" on every data pop-up that I've seen in the past five years.

    Because people are selling that data, my data, data about myself, and I get none of that profit and it was done without my consent or knowledge.

    Because a company having my information should be something I need to personally allow, not something I need to ask and beg them not to obtain.

    Because I can think of very few, if any, benevolent purposes of using that data, but there is a legion of malevolent reasons for it, and of the ones I have seen, all of them fall into this category.

    All this being said, I should not need to have a reason. The onus should not rest with the individual to prove that they deserve undisturbed privacy, it should rest with the institutions that want this information; that it is a requirement to obtain this information for valid reasons and not frivolous ones, or ones rooted in greed or ideology. Like a search warrant for example.

117 comments