I think we all understand that we don’t have a lot of privacy in the real world. Google knows everything you’ve searched for, the banks know what you buy through your credit card statements, the police have snippets of you every time you walk past a security camera, you ISP knows what sites you visit, Amazon knows what books you’ve bought etc. But we are all individual needles in a huge haystack, and those examples are not really invasions of our ‘personal privacy’ if you want to call it that.

How well do you know your neighbors? A lot of people know who their neighbors are but don’t really associate that much with them. You wouldn’t class them as friends (a lot do of course). But say you were an avid cyclist for example, and you found out your neighbor was in the ‘All cyclists should be run over’ group on Facebook. You wouldn’t confront them over it but you’d secretly think a little less of them wouldn’t you? Or if you found out your work colleague had racist attitudes that you didn’t agree with. You’d adjust your behavior and watch what you said around them. Even something as simple as asking someone out. If all you need do is look them up on the web to find out they’re ‘in a relationship’ why would you bother approaching them. That person might be unhappy in the relationship and hoping someone would approach them. But why would you if you know for sure you’ll be rejected. After all, they’re ‘in a relationship’ already aren’t they.

Nobody cares what the big companies know about us, or the law, providing we’re not doing any wrong. It is part of living in this society or system and if it means the relevant ads go to the right people, so much the better. The problems arise when we all suddenly secretly know tidbits of information about those around us. It’s not natural and can lead to awkward situations or just plain avoidance.