For me and 99% of people, the tradeoff is: companies get aggregated data about my internet browsing history that never affects me in the slightest, and I get offered useful goods and services through targeted ads, high-quality literature and journalism without paywalls, and free access to cutting-edge, integrated, personalized software on all my devices.
I'm happy VPNs and cryptocurrencies exist in case I ever need to go on the run from the Deep State, but until then, I will gladly let the whole world know that I am looking for housing in Palo Alto, especially if that means I magically receive good offers for housing in Palo Alto.
I think that, like with medical consent and various other decision situations, the way you phrase the choice An’s degree of trust make a big difference.
Also, the relative upsides and downsides for the parties involved.
The issue with various IT privacy “options” is that the ratio of the company’s upside / downside far exceeds that for the individual user. It’s this asymmetry that is distasteful (unfair) to most humans. If it wasn’t, the IT corporations wouldn’t go to such great lengths to hide it in the “600 pages of EULA”.
And if the public ends up pushing successfully for privacy-preserving laws, why couldn’t we accept that as “revealed preferences” by other means, on par with spending out of pocket for certain services which have come to be necessities by means of bait-and-switch / shady practices of the corporations?..
Do you have a different view when foreign government dynamics are involved? (I’m thinking of the brouhaha around TikTok data going to China.) Or do you just cover that under "it's bad that China gets any sneaky advantage over America, and the fact that privacy is involved is a red herring"?
For me and 99% of people, the tradeoff is: companies get aggregated data about my internet browsing history that never affects me in the slightest, and I get offered useful goods and services through targeted ads, high-quality literature and journalism without paywalls, and free access to cutting-edge, integrated, personalized software on all my devices.
I'm happy VPNs and cryptocurrencies exist in case I ever need to go on the run from the Deep State, but until then, I will gladly let the whole world know that I am looking for housing in Palo Alto, especially if that means I magically receive good offers for housing in Palo Alto.
I think that, like with medical consent and various other decision situations, the way you phrase the choice An’s degree of trust make a big difference.
Also, the relative upsides and downsides for the parties involved.
The issue with various IT privacy “options” is that the ratio of the company’s upside / downside far exceeds that for the individual user. It’s this asymmetry that is distasteful (unfair) to most humans. If it wasn’t, the IT corporations wouldn’t go to such great lengths to hide it in the “600 pages of EULA”.
And if the public ends up pushing successfully for privacy-preserving laws, why couldn’t we accept that as “revealed preferences” by other means, on par with spending out of pocket for certain services which have come to be necessities by means of bait-and-switch / shady practices of the corporations?..
Do you have a different view when foreign government dynamics are involved? (I’m thinking of the brouhaha around TikTok data going to China.) Or do you just cover that under "it's bad that China gets any sneaky advantage over America, and the fact that privacy is involved is a red herring"?