[spdustin]

I believe it is a flaw of the human personality that makes us want to hide information and eventually lie about it.

Who said anything about lying being a part of a desire for privacy?

I don't care if Google or the government knows that I'm searching "[insert embarassing keywords for you here]

Would you care if a prospective insurer knows you're (hypothetically) searching for "atrial fibrillation management" or "opiate addiction"? Or a prospective employer who knows you're (hypothetically) searching for "corporate firewall security exploits"? Or a prospective romantic partner who knows you're (hypothetically) searching for "genital rash"? Any of those searches could be legitimately borne of pure, unadulterated curiosity, but taken out of that context by people with whom you're hoping to establish some kind of relationship, they could easily doom that relationship before it begins. Hell, those searches may not even be made by you but by someone in your household, but if decisions are made and opinions are formed based in that information, you've suffered an unnecessary loss.

Who is the government? It's people. People like you and me.

Indeed, people like you and me, except those people have the authority and/or power to incarcerate you, or impinge on your rights in other (less direct/more insidious) ways. Privacy isn't about hiding the truth from those who have a need to know it, it's about controlling the context of that truth, or at the very least, having a say in any response that comes from the truth being discovered.

[blitzprog]

Recognize the real source of the problem.

Like you said, someone trying to get information about the topics you mentioned could simply be doing this out of curiosity. Now person A from the government says you are X. However you are not X, you are Y.

Think again, what is the actual problem? The actual problem is not the data which is 100% correct.

The actual problem is people's prejudices and assumptions. This is what we need to fix. If someone searches about topic Z we should think very carefully about the consequences of drawing an assumption.

However, this view is very ideological. Your view on the current state is more practical. I do not disagree with your statements, I simply wish that we can address the real issue here in the future. Even if it takes us centuries.

[sravfeyn]

> The actual problem is people's prejudices and assumptions. This is what we need to fix.

Right, so the whole premise of your indifference or opposition to the privacy argument is that people should not have prejudices or (wrong) assumptions. Isn't that too idealistic and to rid people of the prejudices and figure out right moral standard for behaviour - will it not take many more generations, if at all it happens? Till then; till we figure out the right _prejudices_; till all of humanity naturally elevates to the right moral standard, shouldn't we be wary of those bad agents who can abuse others by breaking into their private matters?

Your premise, in short, assumes an ideal world where none is troubling others for their private acts, which unfortunately isn't the case yet.

[Cakez0r]

You might be searching for those things out of curiosity, but if (in the insurance hypothetical) statistically more people searching for "opiate withdrawal" are addicted to opiates, then it's going to affect your health insurance premiums regardless of your intentions.

Or more generally, you can't choose how people interpret data they gather about you and that can adversely affect you.

[dayon]

I forget the term for this, but you've poisoned the discussion by leading it to a dead end with an impossible goal: ridding humanity of prejudice and assumption. Since that isn't remotely possible, we might as well throw our hands up in the air. And forget about data, it's not at fault here.

Like you, Snowden's freedom of speech line never impacted me... until I read this article. It suddenly hit me. The reason I was missing his point is because I was framing it in terms of what's in it for me rather than looking at it as what's in it for us. Someone who doesn't care about freedom of speech doesn't care because he doesn't see what's in it for him. But I doubt you'd argue the benefits of the first amendment.

Similarly, privacy is very important. You might not care (even though you really do), but defending privacy is about ensuring security. Privacy is important for all of us, just like freedom of speech is.

As for what the actual problem is, the problem for the most part is ignorance and a failure to quench it. We need more privacy / cyber-security advocates who can educate people on why they ought to care. It's like teaching people why it's important to lock their doors at night or why they should put their letters into envelopes instead of just using post cards. It's why my mom had to drill into my brain the importance of not giving out my social security number willy nilly. Are you so liberal with your SSN? You don't care about privacy, so would it bother you if Facebook or Google asked for it. After all, they just want to make sure you are who you say you are.

Things aren't obvious to us until they're obvious, and then it feels like common sense. DUH, lock your door! DUH, encrypt your messages!

[cthalupa]

> Any of those searches could be legitimately borne of pure, unadulterated curiosity, but taken out of that context by people with whom you're hoping to establish some kind of relationship, they could easily doom that relationship before it begins. Hell, those searches may not even be made by you but by someone in your household, but if decisions are made and opinions are formed based in that information, you've suffered an unnecessary loss.

I think the negative effects there are largely due to how private we are. If we were constantly confronting these things that seem embarrassing or concerning, we'd come to realize how normal they are.

It would require a completely shift in how we view privacy, one so large I doubt it would ever happen, but I think those are ultimately a symptom of the current system, where we often keep things private for the sake of societal or cultural norms, sometimes to personal detriment.

I'm not particularly arguing that either way is inherently right or wrong - but I do think the consequences you speak of are only meaningful in a world where a large measure of privacy, at least between most people in their day to day interactions, exists.