So I read another article this morning regarding the privacy of our information in today's digital world (see? Skamp really IS growing up! This is a long way from writing about getting drunk with my girlfriends and the shenanigans of my "former" life.). You think your info is private? Think again, my friends. In the article--another from NPR's All Things Considered, they mention the fact that there are these huge powerhouse supercomputers sifting and analyzing data about all of us, all the time. And this can be problematic when the info is used without our permission (which, let's be honest, it is).
Back in the day, before the age of the internet, your information was much more private--in effect "secret." You'd have to hire a private detective to get the scoop on a person to find out details about them--where they worked, where they lived in the past, what kind of ice cream they prefer. Nowadays, big computers can do all that for us (and they do. See the other NPR article I posted in the previous post.). There is no real secrecy any more and there doesn't appear to be much we can do about it. So instead of aiming for secrecy, we now need to instead redefine what privacy means to us. According to Danny Weitzner, this means that the companies who do hold our information need to be "transparent" in how they use our info. We need laws to ensure that this happens. How do you feel about this? Are you alright with companies buying and selling our data without our permission, so long as they're "transparent" about it? I personally don't give a crap--I am just not that interesting. Sell me away, you overarching, devious companies, you.
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