Privacy under attack, but does anybody care?

What is privacy?
Most Americans struggle when asked to define privacy. More than 6,500 MSNBC readers tried to do it in our survey. The nearest thing to consensus was this sentiment, appropriately offered by an anonymous reader: “Privacy is to be left alone.”

The phrase echoes a famous line penned in 1890 by soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice William Brandeis, the father of the American privacy movement and author of “The Right to Privacy.” At the time, however, Brandeis’ concern was tabloid journalism rather than Internet cookies, surveillance cameras, no-fly lists and Amazon book suggestions.

As privacy threats multiply, defending this right to be left alone becomes more challenging. How do you know when you are left alone enough? How do you say when it’s been taken?  How do you measure what’s lost? What is the real cost to a person whose Social Security number is in a data-storage device left in the back seat of a taxi?

Perhaps a more important question, Acquisti says, is how do consumers measure the consequences of their privacy choices? 

In a standard business transaction, consumers trade money for goods or services. The costs and the benefits are clear. But add privacy to the transaction, and there is really no way to perform a cost-benefit analysis.

If a company offers $1 off a gallon of milk in exchange for a name, address, and phone number, how is the privacy equation calculated? The benefit of surrendering the data is clear, but what is the cost?  It might be nothing. It might be an increase in junk mail. It might be identity theft if a hacker steals the data. Or it might end up being the turning point in a divorce case. Did you buy milk for your lactose-intolerant child? Perhaps you’re an unfit mother or father.

Unassessable costs
“People can't make intelligent (privacy) choices,” Acquisti said. “People realize there could be future costs, but they decide not to focus on those costs.

The simple act of  surrendering a telephone number to a store clerk may seem innocuous — so much so that many consumers do it with no questions asked. Yet that one action can set in motion a cascade of silent events, as that data point is acquired, analyzed, categorized, stored and sold over and over again. Future attacks on your privacy may come from anywhere, from anyone with money to purchase that phone number you surrendered.

If you doubt the multiplier effect, consider your e-mail inbox. If it's loaded with spam, it's undoubtedly because at some point in time you unknowingly surrendered your e-mail to the wrong Web site.

Do you think your telephone number or address are handled differently? A cottage industry of small companies with names you've probably never heard of — like Acxiom  or Merlin — buy and sell your personal information the way other commodities like corn or cattle futures are bartered.

You may think your cell phone is unlisted, but if you've ever ordered a pizza, it might not be.  Merlin is one of many commercial data brokers that advertises sale of unlisted phone numbers compiled from various sources -- including pizza delivery companies.

These unintended, unpredictable consequences that flow from simple actions make privacy issues difficult to grasp, and grapple with.

Privacy’s nebulous nature is never more evident than when Congress attempts to legislate solutions to various perceived problems.

Marc Rotenberg, who runs the Electronic Privacy Information Center and is called to testify whenever the House or Senate debates privacy legislation, is often cast as a liberal attacking free markets and free marketing and standing opposite data collection capitalists like ChoicePoint or the security experts at the Department of Homeland Security. He once whimsically referred to privacy advocates like himself as a “data huggers.”

Yet the “right to be left alone” is a decidedly conservative -- even Libertarian -- principle.  Many Americans would argue their right to be left alone while holding a gun on their doorstep. 

In a larger sense, privacy also is often cast as a tale of “Big Brother” -- the government is watching you or a big corporation is watching you. But privacy issues don’t necessarily involve large faceless institutions: A spouse takes a casual glance at her husband’s Blackberry, a co-worker looks at e-mail over your shoulder or a friend glances at a cell phone text message from the next seat on the bus.

‘Nothing to hide’
While very little of this is news to anyone – people are now well aware  there are video cameras and Internet cookies everywhere – there is abundant evidence that people live their lives ignorant of the monitoring, assuming a mythical level of privacy.  People write e-mails and type instant messages they never expect anyone to see.  Just ask Mark Foley or even Bill Gates, whose e-mails were a cornerstone of the Justice Department’s antitrust case against Microsoft. 

It took barely a day for a blogger to track down the identity of the congressional page at the center of the Foley controversy. The blogger didn’t just find the page’s name and e-mail address; he found a series of photographs of the page that had been left online. 

Nor do college students heed warnings that their MySpace pages laden with fraternity party photos might one day cost them a job. The roster of people who can’t be Googled shrinks every day.

And polls and studies have repeatedly shown that Americans are indifferent to privacy concerns.

The general defense for such indifference is summed up a single phrase: “I have nothing to hide.”  If you have nothing to hide, why shouldn’t the government be able to peek at your phone records, your wife see your e-mail or a company send you junk mail?  It’s a powerful argument, one that privacy advocates spend considerable time discussing and strategizing over.

It is hard to deny, however, that people behave different when they’re being watched. And it is also impossible to deny that Americans are now being watched more than at any time in history. 

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Without an instant message evidence trail, would anyone believe a congressional page accusing Rep. Foley of making online advances? And perhaps cameras really do cut down on crime.

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