Hello, cognitive dissonance!

No. Cognitive dissonance would be if they had said, "Privacy, whatever, nobody has any privacy anyway, our numbers are all in the databases around the world. I don't care about my privacy." Then you asked them their name, address, all emails and phone numbers, SS number, driver's license, license plate number, and the numbers of all their bank accounts, investment accounts and charge cards, including the dates and those three digit numbers on the back. And they go and dutifully type in all that information, even though it's stupid to do so, because they have to live up to what they already said: I don't care, nobody has privacy, 'they' know all my numbers already.

What you're talking about is more like Irony.

No person, company, government, machine should be allowed to or be able to be a voyeur. I don't care what their reason is. If I find that it's convenient to allow any data to be saved about me then so be it. But it has to be an informed consent in a short declarative. Not some ten page piece of crap that is too small and complicated to read. If I'm giving up my first born I want to know about it. Otherwise it's like one of those old movies about trying to deal with the devil. It don't work and you loose...

... but not really, for y'all don't know who I am, so you wouldn't know how incessantly I've been sharing about XeroBank.

Anyway, if you care about your privacy, do this: subscribe to XeroBank.com, and use its xB Browser. You get an encrypted VPN (OpenVPN) to one of their its exit nodes in Canada or the Netherlands, and nobody can match any of your internet traffic to your true IP address.

Personal subscriptions, paid anonymously via Dalpay in Iceland, cost $35 per month ($1 for a one-month trial) for 75 Gb (1.5 Mbps down and 0.5 Mbps up). Multiple machines can connect simultaneously via one account, and each establishes a separate VPN. Indeed, virtual machines establish separate VPNs, and don't use their host's VPN.

Because XeroBank is incorporated in Panama, fishing expeditions would be nontrivial. However, malicious activity (e.g., fraud, child porn or other violations of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights) will trigger investigation.

Disclaimer: I am not connected with XeroBank in any way, except as a client, and nothing in this message has been sourced or approved by it.

...it's the interpretation of our actions. The bigger footprint we leave, the bigger the erroneous conclusions someone, anyone, some business, some government, some men in the van outside listening, can put us in a box marked terrorist, or malcontent, or pervert, or deadbeat, at will, as needed, at their convenience, not mine.

I don't mind someone using my habits to improve their service. I mind not getting the job, the loan, the freedom because some small-minded I dunno what decides s/he doesn't like me and I'm dangerous.

Perhaps I am. I don't really feel it, though. I think I'm just some guy with unpopular, incorrect opinions.

I can't help think that hurts me.

Anyone ???

If they lied about their income they didn't divulge any information.

That morons who are retarded in the real world become less retarded because they bought a computer? Isn't that being a little arrogant on your part?

They want to use the "info" to try to sell you stuff, remember? So you should always say you make much less than you really do. Plead poverty, it cuts way down on spam!

One of the things that pisses me off is that these companies essentially force you to give up some of your privacy if you wish to use their websites. For example, I have cookies turned off except for sites that I have authorized to write cookies. This drives my grown kids crazy when the come over and try to look at their e-mail on my machine. Neither Google nor Yahoo is authorized to write cookies but if you want to use gmail or hotmail, you have to let them write cookies, just as an example.

Any data privacy law would have to require collectors of information to reveal what information on you they have and purge it should you so demand.

Just to pick a nit, survey samples of 1000 people are more or less the standard - if you properly choose the sample and account for biases, you can trust the results to within something like 3-5%. Going to a sample much larger than 1000 nets you little or no benefit relative for the added cost.

They think I am a 25-34 year old black woman with 4 years of college, no kids and a household income of $75k. That fools their screening questions about 3 out of 4 tries. That's the shopping democratic they're desperate for so I am happy to serve their interests. Is there any other personal information or demographic slice you absolutely need to show your boss? It would be my pleasure to lie for you.

Plead poverty, it cuts way down on spam!

So if I tell them I have plenty of 'manhood', will that cut down on the penis enlargement spam I get?

One can argue all one wants that personal responsibility should be the rule, but that is futile. When dealing with large sets of people the "personal" part goes out of the window; large groups behave statistically in a manner that reflects innate human nature and preaching personal responsibility will not change this. (Abstinence-only program, anyone?)

Moreover, no matter how responsible we may be as individuals, few of us can be expected to fully understand the underlying technologies involved in this data gathering, and thus most of us are ill-equipped to determine when it is safe to divulge personal information (as one must, if one is conducting a commercial or financial transaction).

Finally, much personal data is legitimately given to authorities: courts, governments, etc. and the law needs to cover this too. The Veterans Administration, for example, recently leaked millions of records of private data belonging to veterans. I got one of their "uh, we're very sorry, but..." letters. They screwed up. Now I have to be on the lookout. Personal responsibility for my own security did not help me at all in that case.

We ought to recognize these problems, and act accordingly by passing a comprehensive privacy law that covers the data-gathering activities of not only private individuals and corporations, but also government agencies as well.