Here's something interesting to go with our conversation about perceptions of privacy online. Google and CVS are teaming up to offer people the opportunity to create a log of their drug history. If this takes off, it suggests that perhaps people have a) redefined what information about themselves should be private; b) have extended their notion of what "still private" means because of a high level of trust that Google will use (or rather not use) their data appropriately; or c) an amalgom of the former which suggests that they have some trust in Google and, in any case, don't really care what happens with the data anyway.
Should people participate in this program? Well, just like email, calendars, document storage/access and myriad other "free" services offered, there is a clear life-benefit paid out to subscribers--even to an extent providing competitive advantage or at least techno-informational leveling of the playing field.
The costs, on the other hand, are less visible and therefore dismissible. The potential for exploitation is only a probability which is dramatically lowered once the size of the exploitable dataset is factored (never mind the fact that most perceive the size of this probability based on a human activity scale without realizing the true capacity of modern computing in assisting any malicious endeavor). And anyway, the information about you is already being stored somewhere by someone else, what does it matter by whom or how many?
In the end, people are forced to make decisions regarding their participation that are based not only on their information needs, but also on the social pressures to participate in the modern society. Contemporary social integration depends on many of these services and devices in the same way that consuming mass media entertainment was social currency of its day.
So, in the end, people make the decision to participate because of what it provides them in both personal information gathering and social connectedness. And because they are participating, they paste over the exchange with rationalizations about how they trust or don't care if anyone else knows anyway.
They might make different choices if they had the technical expertise and time to provide themselves with these solutions. That's why the push for idiot-proof personal servers and the expansion of home broadband could become the basis for a re-taking of personal information and a (re)redefining of the meaning of privacy (if people can even remember the value of it by the time these technologies reach their true market).
Of course, the real problem is that CVS doesn't want to share your information with you. They want to share it with Google because google is going to monitize your data for them and sell it back to you.
Anyway, saw this article today and thought i'd share.
rc
Should people participate in this program? Well, just like email, calendars, document storage/access and myriad other "free" services offered, there is a clear life-benefit paid out to subscribers--even to an extent providing competitive advantage or at least techno-informational leveling of the playing field.
The costs, on the other hand, are less visible and therefore dismissible. The potential for exploitation is only a probability which is dramatically lowered once the size of the exploitable dataset is factored (never mind the fact that most perceive the size of this probability based on a human activity scale without realizing the true capacity of modern computing in assisting any malicious endeavor). And anyway, the information about you is already being stored somewhere by someone else, what does it matter by whom or how many?
In the end, people are forced to make decisions regarding their participation that are based not only on their information needs, but also on the social pressures to participate in the modern society. Contemporary social integration depends on many of these services and devices in the same way that consuming mass media entertainment was social currency of its day.
So, in the end, people make the decision to participate because of what it provides them in both personal information gathering and social connectedness. And because they are participating, they paste over the exchange with rationalizations about how they trust or don't care if anyone else knows anyway.
They might make different choices if they had the technical expertise and time to provide themselves with these solutions. That's why the push for idiot-proof personal servers and the expansion of home broadband could become the basis for a re-taking of personal information and a (re)redefining of the meaning of privacy (if people can even remember the value of it by the time these technologies reach their true market).
Of course, the real problem is that CVS doesn't want to share your information with you. They want to share it with Google because google is going to monitize your data for them and sell it back to you.
Anyway, saw this article today and thought i'd share.
rc
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