Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

Slashdot recently had a very provocative article about the Internet and your privacy. The Slashdot article author explains cookies, add banners and the correlation. The author very adeptly describes how several major add banner companies are expanding and working harder to target adds. Click through rates are dropping and companies who depend on them for revenue are scrambling. Many people are very concerned about cookies. Many, including the author of the Slashdot article, are concerned about privacy and about companies putting your login information together with another database to track your web "footprints."The reality is that companies and governments do that all day every day. The web didnt create a medium for this, it has been a part of our lives for a quite some time. Credit card companies, banks, governments, employers and more keep track of everything that is electronic. Go on a trip, buy a bagel in Bangkok and that information is collected, stored and sold. The web, combined with cookies, does allow companies to track where you have been and what your preferences are. What about simply tracking IP traffic? What about marketing companies buying information from ISPs (does this happen, hmmm). Face it, there is a way to track virtually everything you do, on your computer or not.The bottom line is that I still dont have a problem with this. I dont think there is any grievous crime in information. It irks me a little bit that these guys are making money selling our information and we dont get paid, but it does not frighten me. In this age of machines people are going to have to get used to the fact that privacy is at home, anything you do in a public place (which includes the Internet) cannot be considered private. It is also ludicrous to think that it is possible to police your privacy. There are too many places information is required in our modern lives. Policing it and attempting to keep this publicly required information private with a law, is a waste of money and effort, and ultimately will fail.Whats the problem? We need to take issue with our laws and societal values, not with privacy. So what if someone knows you own a gun, surfed porn yesterday and have a terminal disease? Should you be punished or discriminated against for any of those things? We need to focus on the cause of privacy fears, not the symptoms. ========================================I know this story will illicit some comments (my opinionated stances usually do) so if you have something to say, either email me, or create yourself a ToTSP id to post your own rebuttal.Slashdot: Cookies Article