I don't think it's "all of a sudden," rather that as the web continues to grow up, more and more people are becoming aware that what they do or say on the web i

I don't think it's "all of a sudden," rather that as the web continues to grow up, more and more people are becoming aware that what they do or say on the web isn't as private as they might once have thought. As an aside, I think it first really clicked for me a few years back with the whole Netflix Prize situation, where even though the data was anonymized, smarter folks than I were able to demonstrate how you could personally identify a subscriber's profile from it.