Privacy

The basis of this article was the balance between privacy and the convince that comes from customization.  Do we care more about being treated like individuals and having our needs catered to for the best experience, or do we want to protect our privacy more.  It also takes specific looks into how companies use that information, both on the site itself, for itself, or how they give it out to other companies.  Sometimes, these privacy issues can be something as simple as cookies to help navigate or remember your settings better - and this includes something as simple as remembering what links you've already navigated, to change the colors, which is now standard fare, to remembering your password for you when you return, and all the way up to remembering your specific credit card information and address for shipping purposes.

Not only is it a problem that these companies have this information, it is compounded by the fact that they don't keep it to themselves.  Sometimes this can be like the PSN, where the information was hacked from a substandard security system, or it can be wholesale exchange of personal information for money.

In the end, it is on the consumer to decide their personal level of comfort with this system.  For some, it doesn't matter much.  Amazon and Google probably have detailed and private information on nations worth of people, but we trust them to keep it safe, while other websites, from giants like Facebook to the small, poorly designed sites that don't seem trustworthy, are far more personal decisions.

Question of the day: Have you changed your opinion on how much you protect your privacy on the internet?  Once upon a time, I didn't even want to use my real name on a website, much less enter my address and card information.  Now I don't think twice about it in a lot of cases (unless, obviously, I'm not purchasing anything.  Then it becomes suspect).  Has anyone become less cautious, like I have, or have you become more so?