[gldalmaso]

If I sign up to a video store and suddenly some guys are watching inside my windows all the time to check whichever videos I might enjoy more, no, that would not be ok with me.

It's harmful because it's abusive.

Next year they will want more revenue, so how deeper will they go for that, will they break my windows open and storm the house?

I know it's an exageration, but it ilustrates my point.

[etha]

I see this as something that could potentially lead to abuse, but I don't see how it is abusive by itself, and I don't agree with trying to limit technology because it could potentially be abused unless there's a clear case that the danger of such abuse outweighs the potential benefits. Like the writer of the original article, I haven't seen anyone make that case - it's mostly just people saying "but privacy!"

In your example, those people breaking into your home is wrong. Watching you when you are in public or on their property would not be.

[gldalmaso]

When the service I'm using does not clearly state what info they are using and how, than that's not really being public is it, it's just me having my info appropriated by technology without my knowledge.

[etha]

No, that's where the metaphor breaks down. I don't think there's a good equivalent of "public" in the facebook tracking situation. Instead, I would say that you are on someone else's virtual property, and that they are perfectly within their rights to watch and record whatever you do there and share that information with whoever they like.

It does happen without the knowledge of many people today, and the surprise when they find out what's really going on has led to a lot of backlash, but the solution to that is to educate people better about technology and what it can do, not to limit technology so that it can only do things the average person can conceive of.

[gldalmaso]

I think I can see what you say about virtual property, even though I don't agree that it should all be logged, I agree that it would be public, something that any other user himself could track. So if they only see my activity within that property, than that's one thing, but once they get into my browser and gather information from it, than I think the boundary is oversteped, and they are now in my own property (my browser) and searching through my stuff.