[forgotmypassw]

Because the moment you willingly let an application collect your data, you're no longer the user of the application, you're now a product of the company that owns the application.

Also what @pipermerriam said:

>People have a right to privacy and shouldn't have to provide a reason why they deserve it. Tracking should always be opt-in.

[hilbertseries]

This isn't always true. A lot of companies collect data on their users that they use internally and don't sell to third party sources. Pretty much any large app, even paid apps collects usage data etc in order to better understand their user base and optimize their app.

[victorhooi]

Yes, but many peopel use webapps - whether they be Gmail, Reddit, Instagram, Twitter and mobile apps.

I mean, the damn webapp/apps already have your data.

There's an implicit trust there.

Why do you think webapps are doing so much better than heavy desktop apps? Because people figure the benefits outweigh the risks. Just off the top of my head:

* Reliable distributed backups of your data, without having to do it yourself * Ability to share easily with anybody on the web * No costs for running your own servers * Less technical knowledge required - e.g. have you tried setting up your own email server? And actually sending email reliably?

I don't think we should assume, in our ivory towers, that people are somehow "stupid" - is there a concrete fear here? If so, is it something we think they are unaware of?