Daniel Kaplan questions the future of privacy in the age of the internet:
Protecting their privacy has value for individuals. Yet this value is weighed against others: increasing and maintaining social networks, improving one's reputation, sharing passions, saving time and gaining access to services. When protection conflicts with projection, protection doesn't always win.Yet most privacy laws focus exclusively on protection.
What could I accomplish if I had at my disposal all the data - in some truly useful form - pertaining to the journeys and communications I have made and had in recent years? As well as my past bank card transactions, search engine queries, or detailed lists of all my local supermarket purchases? Not just to control what others do with this information, but to actually use it myself, to my own ends?