Re: think of the children
@JDX
Not so sure about the next generations attitude to privacy, at least if my otherwise normal, social 14 year-old niece is anything to go by. She seems to instinctively get the privacy knock on of the new stuff like twitter, FB etc etc beginning to enter the lives of her and her friends; while she likes twitter for casual chat and to get information, she seems completely disinterested in Facebook beyond asking why people bother. She spends a lot of time messaging and emailing friends on her ipad, but gets irritated quickly with large group messaging chats, and is wary of clicking of links in mail. She's very wary of the teenage habit of handing out photos of herself in stupid poses or pulling funny faces etc, pointing out to me a year or so ago the potential downsides of doing so.
The thing is, she's never really been told in anything other than casual terms to watch this or that by her parents or me, and she gregarious is and certainly not a loner or social outcast, so it seems she learned by observation. My other niece is quite the opposite and probably an advertisers wet dream, but even she's starting to work out restraint for herself - better now than when she's in a position to really make an arsehole of herself in a way that has long term effects for her future.
I think maybe too much is made of those (perhaps few?) of the next generation who seem to dole out the data hand over fist; treating them as representative is perhaps not entirely fair to those who aren't taken in. There is something of a push by the admen and data pimps like Zuckerberg to create 'facts on the ground' by inference that don't really hold water. Privacy may not be a human right yet, but in western societies at least it is an instinct with limits most understand. Most of those who exploit privacy laxity for gain do so with the minimum possible noise, and are currently ahead of the curve of user understanding - the assault on privacy is pretty new really - but that will change a great deal I think when there is a more widespread public understanding that personal data has a value far beyond the trinkets currently handed out for giving it up.
The next generation may not be as absolutist as ours on privacy, but I think they will understand far better the value of data and the benefits of not selling cheap.