4 ms·

Both. I value privacy above everything. Actors use stage names for a reason. Writers use pen names. We use screen names. Why? Privacy. I don't mean priva

Both. I value privacy above everything. Actors use stage names for a reason. Writers use pen names. We use screen names. Why? Privacy. I don't mean privacy as in "to hide", but rather to partition one's life. I don't want my offline life and online life to intermingle. Spammers, ad agencies, facebook, google, etc. all want a unified profile for every person. The more complete that this profile is, the more that information is worth (and becomes the target of data thieves). You have become the product. Your information is sold, other people get rich, and you receive nothing but ads, ads, and more ads, and I loathe ads. My experience was that my private purchases were disclosed to someone who used my computer without my knowledge, and Walmart openly (as in, on the front page) announced my private purchases to someone who was (from their perspective) innocently trying to find something completely unrelated. To a person who values privacy, this is a betrayal from Walmart. In a sense, Walmart doxxed me.

fwdpropaganda 9y ago
> I value privacy above everything. Give me a break. You use credit or debit cards, they record everything. You go around the internet showing your presence to all the data brokers. This has nothing to do with Walmart. You'd just for the first time realized that the things you say you care about don't really match up with your actions, and now you're surprised.
- coreyp_1 9y ago
  I know that our mere existence in this world means that we do not have absolute privacy, but that does not also mean that we can never have privacy at all. For example (slightly exaggerated) it's illegal to put cameras inside a changing room, but not illegal to put a camera at the entrance of the changing rooms. There are boundaries for which privacy should exist. Perhaps a more apt analogy is that of a public library: The library may be public, but most state laws require that your records be kept confidential. The same goes for public education (FERPA). The same goes for healthcare (HIPPA). If I go to a doctor, I do not expect them to send me mail that can disclose my medical history to an incidental observer, which has unfortunately happened to patients in both the UK and US, and people were rightfully angry about it (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/02/london-clinic-accidentally-reveals-hiv-status-of-780-patients https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/02/london-cl... and more recently https://www.statnews.com/2017/08/24/aetna-hiv-envelopes/ https://www.statnews.com/2017/08/24/aetna-hiv-envelopes/). You cannot say, "well, you went to a doctor, you even paid with a credit card, and walked on a public sidewalk up to the door, so you must not care about it being private". I believe that what Walmart did was inappropriate. Maybe not for everyone, but it is for me. (Conversely, I'm quite proud of my GPA & don't mind if it is public knowledge, but my university still won't tell you what it is without my explicit permission, because this kind of information does adversely affect some people, and is therefore protected by FERPA.) Unfortunately, I'm just a single individual and WM probably doesn't care what I think. So be it. I will still make it known, though, that I believe that they violated my privacy. I'm not "surprised" and I don't think that I acted inconsistently. Rather, I'm frustrated at the lack of confidentiality.
  - fwdpropaganda 9y ago
    Again, what you just wrote is related to the "display on your screen" bit. But regarding the "record on their database" bit, you use credit cards and you KNEW that gets recorded in some payment gateway database somewhere. It has nothing to do with Walmart. You just don't like the hassle of using cash.

fwdpropaganda 9y ago

> I value privacy above everything. Give me a break. You use credit or debit cards, they record everything. You go around the internet showing your presence to all the data brokers. This has nothing to do with Walmart. You'd just for the first time realized that the things you say you care about don't really match up with your actions, and now you're surprised.

coreyp_1 9y ago
I know that our mere existence in this world means that we do not have absolute privacy, but that does not also mean that we can never have privacy at all. For example (slightly exaggerated) it's illegal to put cameras inside a changing room, but not illegal to put a camera at the entrance of the changing rooms. There are boundaries for which privacy should exist. Perhaps a more apt analogy is that of a public library: The library may be public, but most state laws require that your records be kept confidential. The same goes for public education (FERPA). The same goes for healthcare (HIPPA). If I go to a doctor, I do not expect them to send me mail that can disclose my medical history to an incidental observer, which has unfortunately happened to patients in both the UK and US, and people were rightfully angry about it (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/02/london-clinic-accidentally-reveals-hiv-status-of-780-patients https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/02/london-cl... and more recently https://www.statnews.com/2017/08/24/aetna-hiv-envelopes/ https://www.statnews.com/2017/08/24/aetna-hiv-envelopes/). You cannot say, "well, you went to a doctor, you even paid with a credit card, and walked on a public sidewalk up to the door, so you must not care about it being private". I believe that what Walmart did was inappropriate. Maybe not for everyone, but it is for me. (Conversely, I'm quite proud of my GPA & don't mind if it is public knowledge, but my university still won't tell you what it is without my explicit permission, because this kind of information does adversely affect some people, and is therefore protected by FERPA.) Unfortunately, I'm just a single individual and WM probably doesn't care what I think. So be it. I will still make it known, though, that I believe that they violated my privacy. I'm not "surprised" and I don't think that I acted inconsistently. Rather, I'm frustrated at the lack of confidentiality.
- fwdpropaganda 9y ago
  Again, what you just wrote is related to the "display on your screen" bit. But regarding the "record on their database" bit, you use credit cards and you KNEW that gets recorded in some payment gateway database somewhere. It has nothing to do with Walmart. You just don't like the hassle of using cash.