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by seanflyon 4306 days ago
Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
1 comments

Isn't that a McCarthyism problem, not a data problem?
Interesting thought. If McCarthy could have subpoena'd Google, he'd have been able to prove that they were all commies and then people wouldn't be unfairly smearing his name today.
In a perfect society, full of perfect people, I don't think we would have much use for privacy. In the society we live in privacy is valuable.
Isn't that the same crappy argument for banning torrents?

Should we stop people from using cars, because vehicles are used by drunk drivers?

It's a bad argument for banning things but it is a perfectly correct argument for pointing out the the real cost of something. Cars kill people. We should not pretend that cars are safe, we should make a rational decision and come to the conclusion that the cost is worth the freedom of transportation.

You'r argument would be a valid analogy if I were suggesting that we make it illegal to tell anyone your location (or any other "private" information). I am only pointing out that privacy is valuable and we should count the cost if and when we give it up.