If you give a business a cookie...

As someone who tries to stay connected in the crazy world of technology, I give away an awful lot of information. Facebook knows everything about me, basically, and there's at least a thousand sites out there that know my email, birthday, full name, and my first pet. Okay, that's an overstatement. Most of that information is stored in some encrypted database on their servers, but let's be honest: we hand out a lot of information, both online and off. I don't mind telling Pandora what kind of music I like, or Goodreads.com what kinds of books I like, because their service is based on taking that information and providing more of what I would probably like. Google reading my searches and emails to give me relevant ads is pushing it a little, but I can live with that. However, when companies take your information without you knowing about it, let alone consenting to it, that's pushing the line a bit. It's an everyday occurrence, though. Data-mining has become one of the mainstays of the internet industry, providing income to Google, Yahoo, and any website that's free- which, it turns out, isn't free. They just charge you your personal information instead of your money.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2058205-1,00.html

So this article covers data-mining in our society better than I could ever hope to; I highly recommend reading it through. Instead of trying to top that, I'll pose a question: how has technology changed societies perception of privacy? For most people, (those who shop online, use MVP cards at grocery stores, or use google) convenience and savings are worth more than privacy. For me, personally, that's a really scary concept. I see it as the slippery slope to a controlled consumerist state with no privacy, but that's probably just my inner conspiracy-theorist talking. But seriously, when did privacy suddenly get downgraded? In 1928, Justice Louis Brandeis went so far as to claim that the right to privacy was "the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men."

While his was a complaint against invasion of privacy by the government, businesses have become the main culprit in todays society. Here, Target tracked a young woman's purchases by assigning an ID number to her credit card, then found she was pregnant by analyzing her purchasing habits.She even got some coupons for maternity clothes in the mail. While it certainly is convenient, is it right? Should companies be allowed to extract so much information from people? While it is true that we consent in a form by using credit cards and shopping at Target, these habits are becoming such an essential part of society that it's near impossible to be an active participant of society without them. Will privacy become a thing of the past for the 'digitally civilized'? I'd hate to think so, but it seems to me that as connectivity increases, the right to privacy will become a thing of the past, and our personal information will be just another commodity to be traded on the free market.