[tuwtuwtuwtuw]

Here in sweden, personal data such as name, address, income, birth date, personal number, car ownership, etc. is public by design.

I find it interesting how the view on this differs depending on country and what people are used to.

[yieldcrv]

The issue is the spam

All of our personal identification data is available, not by design, but it is available

[tuwtuwtuwtuw]

What kind of spam is that? All my info is available online, but I don't really get much spam. Of course, I get spam to my email but my email address is everywhere (also by design) so that's no wonder.

[yieldcrv]

Its caller spam, this subthread is about a shared American experience of receiving spam calls to our cellphones all day in such volume that many of us route all calls to voicemail automatically.

I think you're misinterpreting it as an obsession over privacy. We are victims of unscrupulous scam caller spam due to a multi tiered failure in how our government implements public utilities, and in the meantime we are chiseling at solutions such as enforcing rules on the data brokers who have our information for lease.

Which seems to be working, for people that pay for services to solve this problem. And California's government is simply doing that same service for free for its residents.

[tuwtuwtuwtuw]

I see. Didn't know it was legal to call people like that in the US, so I misunderstood.

[marysol5]

The one I do find interesting, is how the concept of "privacy" has changed in the internet realm.

It wasn't all that long ago I could look up anybody in my town (or any town really) in a big book, and get contact details for them. Unless they specifically opt-out.

But now that concept is seen as madness.

Now companies no longer even list phone numbers or e-mail addresses on their own websites!