Would we tolerate the government prying into privacy like how corporations do? Would anyone?

[ck4829]

Remember back maybe ten years ago if you needed or wanted to find a job? What was it like? And it doesn't matter if it was high or low in prestige and pay.

Was it something like this back then?

Fill this application out.
Put in your previous jobs.
Having a couple references is always good.

But now it seems to be more about this...

What's your credit score?
Fill this personality test out.
Hey there's a gap in your resume from four years ago. What exactly were you doing then?
What's your Facebook page? Oh, what's this. Your friend has a drink in his hand, seems rambunctious. Sorry, you don't seem like a good fit for us.

And now remember how people were up in arms about how "invasive" the census was?

I guess 9/11 changed everything, we don't know if those teenagers trying to get their first job at a grocery store or a fast food restaurant are secretly acolytes of Osama himself, right?

If we turned over control of those body scanners that can see through clothes over to private corporations, there would probably be a jump in the number of people who support their usage, saying "Well, at least the GOVERNMENT isn't scanning us through our clothes, and that makes me feel better! So why can't you all just smile while you go through the scanner?!"

[ixion]

1. Land of the Free and Home of the Brave? Hardly...

Our day-to-day living is neither free nor brave.

[leveymg]

2. Just wait for HTML5 - every company will have an Internet viewing profile for everyone.

There’s been plenty of worry over the years about Internet privacy, “but the alarmists have not seen anything yet,” warns the New York Times in a front-page story on the dangers of HTML5. The new web standards will bring tons of new features—“It’s going to change everything … it’s the new web,” gushes one web developer—but it will also make surfer’s computers much more vulnerable to trackers.

HTML5 allows large amounts of data to be collected and stored on a user’s hard drive while they’re online—kind of like cookies on steroids. As a result, advertisers may be able to see weeks or months worth of data, including emails, web history, address, shopping cart items and more. It “gives trackers one more bucket to put tracking information into,” says the CTO for the Opera browser, while a privacy advocate frets that the standard “opens Pandora’s box of tracking in the Internet.”

[leveymg]

3. P.S. - Facebook already uses HTML5 components, and someone has cooked up a supercookie

that's already floating around on the Net.

Facebook, see: http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/using-html5-today/438532093919

Samy "Samy Worm" Kamkar's HTML5 Supercookie, see: http://www.htmlgoodies.com/daily_news/article.php/413396/HTML-5-Technology-May-Have-Privacy-Issues.htm

[HughBeaumont]

4. Why not?

DUHmerica seems far more comfortable allowing corporations to make decisions about their health care as opposed to just having single-payer like most advanced nations do. Why should this be any different?