Privacy.

Some people believe, and don't mind sharing the view, that "Privacy is dead." I suspect that some of the proponents of that perspective do not fully understand just what privacy is. It does not mean that nobody shares any of their personal information. It means that each individual gets to choose how and when that personal information is shared.

Privacy is not helped when the government is not willing to do much to protect it. There are entire industries built on the storing and selling of information about every individual in the United States. This is not information that you may have explicitly made the choice to share, but they are able to sell that data because it falls under the realm of "public information." We should not worry too much that this information could easily lead to the stealing of your identity if it were to fall into the wrong hands.

The other problem is the creation of websites where you are expected to share personal information in order to be part of a community. Those who keep their information locked down are seen as standoffish in this new community, much like someone at a party who just doesn't open up or talk about anything. You are expected to share things like the area you live in, where you like to vacation, marital status, information about any children you may have, where you work, and more. Each piece of information, analyzed by itself, seems innocuous and unimportant. The concept that many do not consider is the kind of profile that could be built based on all of this information as a whole. It just might be enough information to con account details out of your bank. It might be enough to get medical information from a hospital or doctor's office. Maybe these "bad guys" would be able to sign up for credit cards, bank loans, mortgages, etc, using this profile information gleaned from a few Internet-accessible sites.

At the end of the day, people need to take the willful dissemination of this private information much more seriously than it seems they do today. More care should be given to the complete picture of what this information means, rather than the minimal significance that each individual piece might represent. As well, our government should do more to protect our information by putting tighter controls around the storing, processing, and sharing of this information. When an entity fails to properly handle this information, there should be transparent procedures and penalties that must be complied with. No longer should companies be able to make up the rules as they go along, nor should the legally proscribed standards strive to be weak in order to keep big business happy. The standards should be considered high-end and businesses will either comply or be forced out of the game.