[gub09]

This is probably an unusual opinion, but for me privacy is similar to freedom. Freedom is usually defined as a negative: people are free of oppression, have freedom of speech (freedom from speech being constrained), freedom of movement (not forced to stay in one place), religious freedom (freedom to believe what one will and not be limited in practice or assembly), etc.

Privacy is the freedom from being watched, from having one's movements and actions and consumption and words observed, tabulated and stored. I hope that one day whether by laws or technological solutions, privacy will again be the norm in our lives.

[adjkant]

I think it's important to note the definition of privacy you use is important.

For me, in my daily life, all of this is completely "private". Google having my data in mass and an identity profile on me that no human will ever specifically look at is just as good as private to me. The fact that computers will be handing this data, not other humans, is an important distinction for me. No human will ever see my individual data in all likelihood.

I don't think the lack of privacy is a problem, but rather the centralized power. It's really tough right now with so much power in information, but the only real information power coming in volume.

[pdkl95]

> the definition of privacy you use is important

Yes, it is. Defining privacy to mean the very opposite of "private" is pure doublethink/newspeak.

> Google having my data

You're not giving your data only to google. You're also giving it to anybody that hacks Google's servers to take their data at any point in the future (and anybody that buys it from the hackers), and any government (or other entity with sufficient power or influence) that orders (legally or illegally) Google to turn over their data, and anybody that Google might sell the data to should they have unfortunate financial troubles. This list will probably grow as the value of data grows and creative new ways to exploit data are discovered.

I commend Google for taking security seriously. You data is probably saver with them than than many business. However, they are still human so they make mistakes. Hacks will happen even with the very best well-funded security teams using impossibly good practices. When governments are involved, it may not even be Google's choice.

You need to remember that data doesn't go away, so the risk of who it may spread to only increases with time.

> other humans

Humans don't need to see your data for it to harm you. Your insurance company doesn't need a human to feed data from Google (or whomever) (possibly blinded through some sort of "rating service"?) through the machine learning and/or "risk assessment" heuristic du jour to raise your rates or deny coverage.

> centralized power

Pretending the world is just[1] - that your data will somehow be limited to only Google - gives Google a lot of power, that will be hard to reclaim. If by some miracle they are able to do better than most people throughout history that acquire power and only use their power for benevolent reasons, the same cannot be said indefinitely into the future.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

[bingojess]

I agree with what you are saying but given the probabilities (I don't see the big 5 having a significant data breach any time soon) it is something I'm willing to trade off or sacrifice so to speak. I guess the ideal scenario would be that all corporation and the government does not store my data, even anonymously. But this is unrealistic and I haven't bothered looking for alternatives that are safer/have more privacy.

Focusing on unlikely events is inefficient in that the preparations or measures taken against them often are not worth the expected benefit. Pointing out that there is always risk of improbable events is not always useful especially when mitigating these risks is costly. We increase the chances of being hit by a car when we leave the house or when we jaywalk.

Personally for me, the benefits from using services provided by Google or any other company outweigh the risks of my information falling into the wrong hands. The worst that I can hypothesize would be a political opponent using some data to pin a crime on me and throw me in jail. Or maybe some of this data could lead to me losing my job. Both unlikely scenarios. I am fortunate however because I live in a country where politicians are less likely to abuse their power (still a possibility of course) and I am not a political dissident nor a criminal. The same can't be said for everyone, so for people where the risks are far greater, they take extra precautions because it is worth it for them.

[hedora]

I emphatically opt out of all of Google's services and tracking. I have done everything I can to avoid having them track me, short of quitting my job (we use google apps at work...).

When you (I think, naively) traded your privacy and freedom for their services, you also traded a bit of my privacy and freedom, and that is unacceptable to me.

The same can be said about any of the other big surveillance capitalism companies (facebook, microsoft, etc).

I don't know why you think they will only hypothetically use this information against you. You are bombarded with machine generated attempts at psychological manipulation on a daily basis, and your private information is regularly leaked/sold to bad actors and out of control law enforcement agencies on a continuous basis.

You even say you are lucky you are not a political dissident, so you admit that, in your own mind, you have given up the right to participate in our democracy as you see fit.

[bingojess]

I opt out when when it's convenient (ie. located in the settings I don't dig further than that) I deleted by FB.

I value it different and am fully rational in what I have done. Psychological manipulation? You mean ads and recommended youtube videos? If you could elaborate, this would interest me.

With regards to bad actors and overreaching LE, I really haven't felt the negatives to warrant changing my behaviour.

I have no idea what you mean giving up participating in democracy. How does choosing not to be a dissident mean I have given up the right to participate in the democratic process? I'm not American by the way. I'm in a country where I have my vote and I can speak up against my government without repercussion. If I were in an authoritarian one I'd be much more concerned.

[skummetmaelk]

Political changes can happen very quickly. Countries can go from free democracies to authoritarian dictatorships in 20-30 years. You cannot know what the world, and your country, will look like in 50 years. Being okay with giving companies ammunition against you is the same as making bad decisions like driving without a seatbelt because "I'm a good driver and I will never crash".

[659087]

> Personally for me, the benefits from using services provided by Google or any other company outweigh the risks of my information falling into the wrong hands

Which benefits? Most of the services Google provides can be replaced for free or for very small amounts of money -- and without giving up your privacy.

Is saving $50-100/yr really worth granting Google the right to store and abuse your data forever, or the risk of your data ending up in the hands of criminals?

[mvdwoord]

These events are not improbable imo. They are inevitable.

[cheez]

There is anonymity in crowds. That's potentially the privacy he's speaking about.

[dorian-graph]

> Google having my data in mass and an identity profile on me that no human will ever specifically look at is just as good as private to me.

This feels like saying "I have nothing to hide".

[noonespecial]

>No human will ever see my individual data in all likelihood.

What matters to me is not the likelihood, but the possibility. Can someone who wants to at a later date, "pull my file" and see it all.

If its true then what we have is a classic example of the panopticon. They can't watch everybody all the time, but they can watch anybody whenever they want, even retroactively. That's bad news.

[tskaiser]

It is private, but it is not securely private, meaning it is a castle made of glass.

[jankedeen]

How incredibly naive.

[qrbLPHiKpiux]

Metadata is surveillance

[XJOKOLAT]

"in all likelihood" ... the key bit.

The US, for example, is one presidency away from complete democratic failure. By which I mean all that data, which now is effectively, "in all likelihood", private via volume, can and will be abused.

Giving up and allowing privacy to fail now only makes disastrous consequences more likely later at the whim of that centralised power you mention.

[speedplane]

Privacy and freedom are very intricately related, but rather than saying privacy is a "type" of freedom, I would say that privacy is a requirement for freedom. Perhaps our most basic freedom (more than travel or speech), is the freedom to think. This is possible solely because our thoughts are private.

[AdamN]

When you say 'freedom', you mean 'liberty'. Read up on the words and the Federalist Papers - you'll enjoy it.

[bingojess]

Isaiah Berlin on Negative Freedom too

[pjc50]

Remember that Roosevelt's famous "four freedoms" included two "freedom of" and two "freedom from".

The "freedom from" elements have been de-emphasised lately as they're extremely unpopular with the right-wing:

"The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world."

[Shivetya]

seems to me the only recent threats to freedom of speech have all been from the "liberal" side expressed quite well in colleges with heckler vetoes and codified in law with nebulous hate speech definitions. with regards to worship, same thing, you can have your beliefs but you have to bow to our laws which supercede.

we have lost freedom from fear because both politicians and terrorist profit by exploiting it.

[frogpelt]

Interesting. So one person sees the right wing de-emphasizing the "freedoms from" and another sees the left-wing taking away "freedoms of".

I guess we need a middle wing that attempts to preserve as much liberty as possible for as many people as possible regardless of who feels it is unequal or offensive.

I say this because I feel that the fight for equality is in direct opposition to the fight for liberty.

[pjc50]

Liberty without equality is liberty for some, not for all. Or we're back to the view that people are "free" to do things which they cannot afford to do, or might risk their precarious employment or healthcare situation.

[zaphods-towel]

We have also lost freedom from fear because of militarization of police, violent suppression of protest, extensive surveillance, harassment and manipulation of journalists, and threatening actions taken by bigots.