13th February 2010, 11:13 AM
The "myspace culture" seems to have made companies think people don't care about privacy any more. Name, Age, Zip Code, now I know everything about you. That's why I never reveal the big 3. Others do, that's fine, but big companies have been ramping up the "share everything" options to the point where they don't even seem optional any more.
Just this morning I had to quickly shut OFF google's "buzz" service after finding out that it decided I wanted a page dedicated to myself (I didn't and never asked it to) and that I wanted everyone in the world to know who I've been e-mailing (again, I don't, and I'm just hopeful that some psychiatrist/patient confidentiality hasn't been compromised by this automatic opt-in policy).
Then I found out that yahoo did the same thing, so I had to find their own well hidden opt out option to shut THAT leak off.
Microsoft has been better, but it always came off as creepy when they introduced "view your friend's friends" as an automatic opt-in.
Now even Blizzard is throwing privacy to the four winds with their revamped Battle.net. It's manual opt-in, which is great, but the issue is that to even use it, called "RealID", you have to actually share your real name with, well, pretty much everyone. Isn't that a bit much Blizzard?
Anonymous identity is still valuable. People should be in less of a rush to give it up like this. There's a reason I don't use Myspace. The other part of it is I have a healthy sense of shame. I don't consider the details of my life valuable at all to others, and consider the idea of sharing every little thought as it comes into my head unfiltered on Twitter the height of vanity, as it is basically saying "I am valuable as a person", when I know better.
People need to be a little more ashamed of themselves. A robot uprising reducing us to meat puppets would probably do the trick.
Just this morning I had to quickly shut OFF google's "buzz" service after finding out that it decided I wanted a page dedicated to myself (I didn't and never asked it to) and that I wanted everyone in the world to know who I've been e-mailing (again, I don't, and I'm just hopeful that some psychiatrist/patient confidentiality hasn't been compromised by this automatic opt-in policy).
Then I found out that yahoo did the same thing, so I had to find their own well hidden opt out option to shut THAT leak off.
Microsoft has been better, but it always came off as creepy when they introduced "view your friend's friends" as an automatic opt-in.
Now even Blizzard is throwing privacy to the four winds with their revamped Battle.net. It's manual opt-in, which is great, but the issue is that to even use it, called "RealID", you have to actually share your real name with, well, pretty much everyone. Isn't that a bit much Blizzard?
Anonymous identity is still valuable. People should be in less of a rush to give it up like this. There's a reason I don't use Myspace. The other part of it is I have a healthy sense of shame. I don't consider the details of my life valuable at all to others, and consider the idea of sharing every little thought as it comes into my head unfiltered on Twitter the height of vanity, as it is basically saying "I am valuable as a person", when I know better.
People need to be a little more ashamed of themselves. A robot uprising reducing us to meat puppets would probably do the trick.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)