The Fantasy of Opting Out
This is silly, we are all observed by other people almost all of our lives, but that's fine because they don't conspire behind our backs to create a comprehensive record that's handed over to the government. I don't mind if the building security records me entering the building, or the bank records me using the ATM, or that London Transport videos me on the train. What I object to is if all of those are stitched together and handed over to advertising agencies or my employer.Likewise I don't care that Google knows what I searched for, or that Twitter knows what I tweeted, or that LinkedIn has my employment history. What I don't want is all of that being sold to Cambridge Analytica to then aggregate and sell on to someone else for goodness knows what purposes.An awful lot of my life and interests are easily searchable. My handle here is basically just my name, and I use the same handle or even more complete versions everywhere I can. When I'm out in public, the public can see me. When I post in public, the public can read what I say. That's fine, that's why I said it.However my private correspondences with my wife and kids on iMessage or WhatsApp are nobody else's business. My bank transactions and online shopping likewise, that latter is mainly between me and Amazon. Where I would get upset is if Amazon sold that data to Google to show me 'relevant ads', or show my purchases to my friends. Remember Facebook Beacon? There need to be clear, hard lines in the sand.