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That's not correct. A slippery slope argument, given realistic risk and possibility, can be a valid argument. And that is exactly what all of the privacy concer

That's not correct. A slippery slope argument, given realistic risk and possibility, can be a valid argument. And that is exactly what all of the privacy concerns are about: risk. I think we both know that breaches of sensitive and private data are a real danger and aren't some abstract, theoretical possibility that never happens. They happen all the time. Aggregation of personal data is dangerous by virtue of existence, without even touching the moral issue of whether it's ethical to try to spy into people's lives and habits for whatever reason. Knowledge is power. And knowing almost everything about a person is one of the most dangerous weapons I can think of. Even more dangerous is that most people do not even realize how dangerous that is. They are either unaware of it, or worse, willfully ignorant.

killnine 15y ago
My instinctual response to this debate is, if you having nothing to hide, why do you care. But you're right, there is a very fine line somewhere here in this quest for data collection, and as history shows again and again, the entities collecting it normally get too greedy, or slip, look the other way, etc, and the consumer ends up being taken advantage of, and having to learn once more, these entities can not be trusted. If there were more of an "opt-in" mindset to doing such collecting, the situation would be a bit more balanced. I agree visiting a site and consuming its content while demanding the site gets nothing out of it is not balanced. But why can't we meet somewhere in the middle, with more transparency on what is being taken, and more permission asking for taking.
- pavel_lishin 15y ago
  > My instinctual response to this debate is, if you having nothing to hide, why do you care. My instinctual response to that is to ask if I can watch you the next time you go to the bathroom, or have sex.

killnine 15y ago

My instinctual response to this debate is, if you having nothing to hide, why do you care. But you're right, there is a very fine line somewhere here in this quest for data collection, and as history shows again and again, the entities collecting it normally get too greedy, or slip, look the other way, etc, and the consumer ends up being taken advantage of, and having to learn once more, these entities can not be trusted. If there were more of an "opt-in" mindset to doing such collecting, the situation would be a bit more balanced. I agree visiting a site and consuming its content while demanding the site gets nothing out of it is not balanced. But why can't we meet somewhere in the middle, with more transparency on what is being taken, and more permission asking for taking.

pavel_lishin 15y ago
> My instinctual response to this debate is, if you having nothing to hide, why do you care. My instinctual response to that is to ask if I can watch you the next time you go to the bathroom, or have sex.