Bryan Caplan:
Angry lamentation about the effects of new tech on privacy has flabbergasted me the most. For practical purposes, we have more privacy than ever before in human history. You can now buy embarrassing products in secret. You can read or view virtually anything you like in secret. You can interact with over a billion people in secret.
Then what privacy have we lost? The privacy to not be part of a Big Data Set. The privacy to not have firms try to sell us stuff based on our previous purchases. In short, we have lost the kinds of privacy that no prudent person loses sleep over.
The prudent will however be annoyed that – thanks to populist pressure – we now have to click “I agree” fifty times a day to access our favorite websites. Implicit consent was working admirably, but now we all have to suffer to please people who are impossible to please. . . . .
Historically Hollow: The Cries of Populism
Meanwhile of course the government takes (mostly innocent!) state driver’s license biometrics without notice or consent.