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“Privacy, like the related problems of copyright, security, and net neutrality, is often seen as a binary issue. Either you believe governments and corporations are evil entities determined to strip citizens and consumers of all human dignity or you think, as leading tech CEOs have the unfortunate habit of repeating, that privacy is long gone, get over it. But many of the individual problems that come up are much more subtle that that. Think of Google Street View which has generated investigations and litigation around the world, particularly in Germany where, as Jeff Jarvis pointed out, Germans think nothing of naked co-ed saunas. Or how about targeted or personalized or, depending on your conclusion about it, “behavioral” advertising? Without it, whether on broadcast TV or the web, we don’t get great free content. And besides, the more targeted advertising is, the less we have to look at ads for stuff we aren’t the least bit interested in and the more likely that an ad isn’t just an annoyance but is actually helpful.”
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