Privacy is the hottest news story nobody cares about. Oh, sure, we say we care. We may even leave outraged comments on blogs, ranting about Big Brother Google or Facebook’s transgressions. But, really, we don’t care. How do I know we don’t care? Because our actions say so. As soon as there’s something we want, even just a little bit, our privacy concerns go straight out the window. We bitch and moan — and continue to post our status updates on Facebook. We decry the loss of our boundaries — and continue to Twitter our dinner plans to the entire interconnected world. We are, in short, hypocrites. For example, it’s highly fashionable — and low-risk — to slam UK-based Phorm. Their privacy invasion is just a little too invasive. Phorm’s technology is embedded in our ISPs; if you happen to opt-in (to a friendly offer of ‘more relevant content’), they will follow you everywhere you go online. So Phorm’s an easy target. Amazon won’t have any truck with them. The European Commission has just initiated legal action against the U.K. for not cracking down on Phorm. And consumers hate the mere mention of the would-be behavioral stalkers. Malcolm Rasala left this comment on the Amazon article:
Phorm is dangerous. It is an intrusion into every individuals private life. It is Big Brother. Worse it treats every individual with contempt by using your personal data to bombard you with vacuous banal advertising messages as if we do not have enough of this delusional nonsense as it is. I do not want to be bombarded by 50 car company ads just because I visited one car company website. And nor should you. Do not become a zombie in the appalling world Phorm and other such sites are trying to create. Well done Amazon. Well done European Union. Sue the b*****ds them completely out of existence.
Don’t hold back, Malcolm. Tell us how you really feel. So everybody hates Phorm; we get it. But Google’s market share continues to grow, even though they know everything about us. The information we reveal on Facebook and Twitter gets more and more intimate. And new personalization services are greeted more with delight than disdain. So what’s the difference? It’s simple: when we don’t like it or don’t want it, it’s an invasion of privacy. When we like it or want it, it’s the price we pay. We don’t actually care about privacy at all. What we care about is having a sense of control over our lives. We’ll happily share everything we do — but we want to be respected, and we want to be able to choose. This is why Google’s privacy backlash never makes it past a few ranting journalists: because we want what Google’s got far too much to worry about the data they keep on us. Every now and then I end up on a computer that’s got some other search engine enabled by default, and I get something other than my 10 blue links. The jolt is invariably unpleasant. I can’t wait to get back to my happy rainbow logo. And I couldn’t care less if I have to hand over my browsing habits to do so. So ask yourself a hard-nosed, reality-check question: how much do you really care about your privacy? And how much would it take to give it up? Would a Google search do the trick?
