[Anth-ny]

Schneier says the right to privacy is a right to control personal information. While that's true, it's only part of it, and it doesn't capture the fundamental problem of privacy. The fundamental problem is about those situations where you can look into your neighbor's back yard, but you decide not to do so. It's therefore more of a civil obligation. The corresponding right for the neighbor is to have the expectation of not being watched.

http://www.anthonyettenroc.com/anthony/2011/1/16/google-and-...

[loup-vaillant]

I think you'll agree that privacy is about not leaking personal informations in unwanted ways, period. "Control" sounds like an excellent fit. Now there are various means of control.

One of them would be the expectation you speak of. The goal stays the same though: I don't want my neighbour to know the size of my d---. I want to control who knows that.

Another mean would be trust. When I tell something private to a friend, I may trust her not to tell anyone else. I still want to control who knows that "something private".

Yet another is plain paying attention. If my backyard is visible from the outside, then someone may look inside accidentally. In that case, I cannot reasonably expect no one will see. Same thing with Facebook, only worse.

[Anth-ny]

That's the point. We increasingly can't control the information about everything we do, but we trust and have the right that the neighbor who accidentally saw us does the right thing.

[loup-vaillant]

You seem to have given up on direct control. Wait for the FreedomBox, it ain't over.

One neighbour may do the right thing. But 10? 100? It would be good to be able to trust them all, but I see this as even less probable than recovering direct control.