It looks obvious

Fred Wilson, one of the most astute bloggers, is wrong when he claims that:

“While this may be problematic in certain privacy respects, it is hugely beneficial in most respects”

. While we might accept some violation of our privacy I do not believe that its becoming the norm. As support for his opinion he provide wonderful example:

“Do you want to know where your teenage daughter is at 11pm after she fails to call you as she promised?Do you want to know where the nearest Starbucks or Jamba Juice or subway stop is? Would you like to be able to text message your buddies the exact location of the cool bar you are hanging out in?I think you get the picture”.

Yes in fact I do, but I did not give the government permission to check where is my daughter - and this is a big different.
What we see are actually very responsible corporations that understood that the reason they can make money by using our private information is that they do not break our trust and do not abuse it. When the public realize that the confidence they entrusted with a corporation, like Sony, breached the reaction is extremely bad.
I tend to agree with OMs observation that we still do not see the masses using the service of the new wave of high-tech companies. Most of the people using these services now are the early adoption population. These people, me included, are willing to leave their e-mail for soon to come beta application without knowing anything on the company just because we enjoy playing with the new toys. However I think it will be wrong to assume that masses would behave the same as this population.
I’m sure that cases like the Sonys spyware and other will come along the way. These cases and the reaction to them will shape the boundaries around what level of privacy the public will be willing to pay for free service. That being said I do not think that the government can, or should, participate in this “party” of boundaries discovery. I do not want “worried” official to wonder where I’m at 11:00 pm. While I understand the security issues, leaving in Israel most of my life, I wouldnt want the breach of my privacy become easier thank to technology. We will have to make sure that governments are restricted using new technology in order to increase control and limit our freedom.

Technorati Tags: Privacy, Web 2.0, Libertarianism, Sony