Online privacy; Protecting our own, invading others

t should be no surprise to anyone that privacy is a casualty of the online world. Even if you're not online yourself, your information is. Yet people demand privacy while happily giving their personal information to anyone with a free offer (see, for instance, http://www.extremetargeting.com). The Pew Internet and American Life Project has published the results of a survey showing that most people in the US want companies to guarantee online privacy ("Survey: Most in US Want Companies to Guarantee Online Privacy," CNN.com, August 21, 2000: http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/08/18/ privacy.report/index.html). People don't seem to realize that supermarket coupon cards provide more accurate purchase tracking than browser cookies -- or they don't care, as long as they can save a buck. Don't get me wrong. I do care about my privacy, which is why I don't use supermarket coupon cards. I practice my own personal version of security by obscurity, not offering information if I don't need to. I have a firewall protecting my little network at home. We scan for viruses on the Windows machines, keep up with patches, and test suspicious software in an isolated environment. Who'd have thought that my little girl's Reader Rabbit software would compromise the privacy of my network? If you can't trust Reader Rabbit, you can't trust anyone. Then why are television reality programs like Survivor so popular? Oh, that's right, privacy is a concern as long as it's my privacy. Let's unearth all the dirt we can on others. Want to know what your spouse or kids are doing online? You too can be a spy. Lew Koch discusses this disturbing trend in this masterfully-written article: