Sober Sunday Reflections on...Internet Privacy

A lot happened in 2012. Obama got re-elected. More atrocious acts of domestic terrorism were committed. Mother Earth pissed and vandalized across the American east coast. The more superstitious of us held our breaths for a botched apocalypse.

Now that 2012 has oozed slowly past us into recent memory, we have another year to keep working things out as a species. Another year to keep congealing into a more interconnected global civilization, and deal with all the dog shit that process entails.

This brings me to the topic of today's post. It's definitely not the most pressing problem on the table for 2013, but it's an issue that deserves attention, if only because the personal, moral, and legal implications of it will continue to feature more prominently as the tides of technological interconnectivity continue to rumor tsunami. So without further introduction, the subject of this Sunday's gut-rotten meditation is the stupid notion of being private on the internet.

Recently, people I know have expressed concerns about privacy on the internet and the idea of becoming a "human billboard". Basically, they are wary of companies mining user content for stock images and advertising data that may contain a picture of their delightful 1-month old pierced nose baby, or their last plate of photogenic foie gras at X rich-people-place-to-eat. They feel violated by it, like it's some dirty underhanded way of prying into their personality, decoding their consumer habits, and turning them into a marketing statistic. This kind of thing has never struck me as surprising or somehow dehumanizing. If anything, the online marketing machine seems to be responsible for consumerism becoming more aware of itself, like the hive-mind behind all cravings of modern civilization starting to develop higher consciousness and a deeper understanding of how to continue satisfying desires more efficiently.

Wait, finding frighteningly faster and better ways to stay pleased in a world that has been trying to kill us since the 200,000 year get-go? What could possibly be more human?

Maybe it's the fear and disgust of the "Other"...that is, the idea of having an alarmingly accurate replica of our consumer identity existing like a ghost in Google's server space that prevents some of us from embracing the fact that we are on the grid whether we like it or not. Look, I get the inborn distrust of technological exposure. But, if you participate in "THE SYSTEM", you become part of the system. You sign the tacit social contract of the internet. You get what you want, and in turn, you have to deal with a digital shadow following you around the online marketplace like a blurry predator.

It's obvious that being on the internet involves a constant exchange of information. Think about all the juicy details you reveal in a typical email. The federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) made it pretty much illegal to read or exploit the contents of an electronic communication. But, like all laws in the Wild Web West, the ECPA has many exceptions. The ECPA distinguishes between messages that are in the process of being communicated, and messages stored on computer hard drives. Stored messages are given less protection than messages intercepted while being sent.

Then, there's the PATRIOT Act. Shit dawg! That law basically greases the skids of the giant government probe doing its damnedest to inspect the darkest recesses of your online poop chute. To improve the efficiency of acquiring records, the P-Act was able to deflect most of the oversight usually provided by other government branches.  Plus, it made a point to expand the kinds of online records that can be searched for without a court order.

 "Fuck. That lactating horse was definitely under age."

Honestly though, I don't see the problem. Just by using a browser, utilizing a search engine, sending an instant message, being active on social media, or even writing a blog you open up a gaping wound of personal data. It's all part of the game.

I also didn't see the problem when sites like Instagram tried taking the liberty of exploiting their user generated content for marketing/advertising purposes (though they recently lost their nerve), especially if they didn't have legal obligation not to do so. People that complain about things like that are like people that get elective liposuction surgery, and then complain about the post-op swelling. If you don't want your anonymous face in an ad, don't make your face available on a site that may do this sort of thing. It's so simple it hurts.

"Where's my owie? It feels like everywhere."

I like to entertain a different perspective about the internet. Complete online privacy, barring the discretion of financial transactions and anything that can bring undeserved harm to someone, is a ridiculous concept when it is considered with regard to logging on to a massively interconnected network. Nothing about the internet, at the root of its social idea, implies a guarantee or right to anonymity. Because for one, when you engage in online activities, you tacitly accept the possibility of being identified and certain information about you being taken. For most people this is probably not a big problem. It's no different than the risk you take every time you go outside, or drive to work. You can get ploughed by a gas truck, shot by a psychopath, abducted by a pervert, or recognized by a love interest in your fever-stained sweatpants.

In the same way on the internet, your embarrassing half-naked ab shot upload could show up a month later on the first page of a Google image search...keyword: "douche boobs".

"Dawg, check these shits out. What do you mean

they look like the rock eater in Neverending Story?"

Furthermore, you are owed no privacy (legally or ethically) when you consent to use online services where privacy is not explicitly offered as a service. But, some people still feel entitled to an absurd level of individual privacy when it comes to putting their shit on the internet. Why? Is it a first-world attitude of entitlement? Is it ignorance about the actual structure and function of the internet? Probably all of the above.

 There ain't no such thing as an incognito king.

Conclusion

If you want total privacy on the web, either learn geek and take advantage of electronic stealth, or stop puking every banal tidbit of your personal life into the howling void. Then it wouldn't be recycled into bland stock images and advertising fodder by the internet's dumpster divers.

Or, we could all stop caring so much about what white-washed MSN health article our hipster glazed Instagram photo would have appeared on, and just do what we want.

Either way, I still love all of you.