Quote:
Originally Posted by mart44
That's interesting. You're the first person I've ever seen mention offline privacy (as in not 'The Internet'?). We divulge a great deal of information about ourselves to the government, councils banks, hospitals, doctors etc. These are people who know our names and where we live. The information is probably all on computers that talk to each other somewhere. Probably quite a bit known about us all in all. Yet we don't seem to worry about this as much as privacy on the Internet.
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I quite agree, the erosion of privacy has been accelerating and I've been trying not to worry about it too much - especially as there seems little one can do in the face of a zillion organisations requiring to have one's details on file. However, even if these organisations have a lot of data about us, they don't actually pick through our email (or snail-mail) or look over our shoulders as we surf. The Phorm issue has been my wake-up call, and also at last something we can do something about. It's utterly blatant and it's ubiquitous - a significant part of our lives is now conducted online, and at one stroke ISPs would like to just plug into it all and do whatever the heck it likes with our data using black boxes that no-one can adequately audit.
What I meant in my comment was that if we don't take a stand on this issue - which is finally something we
can do something about - then what right do we have to complain about intrusions in other parts of our lives?
The fact that the company helping the ISPs with this plunder has such a dody past is kind of a bonus in terms of highlighting the utter unacceptability of what's proposed.