Privacy vs Desire

There seems to be a huge uproar about the internet’s assault on my privacy.

Most recently there was a bit of a hub-bub about Google changing their privacy policy and a rush to ‘opt-out’ to prevent the big G sharing data between the various services I use – in order to protect my privacy.

At the very same time the internet is stealing hours and hours of precious time, checking for news, reading facebook and twitter and so on. And this theft is in many cases deliberate. (I posted some thoughts about ‘desire’ and the internet recently.)

Why is there no uproar about the assault on my time? It seems to me that loss of privacy that may cause ‘potential harm’ is of little consequence compared to ‘actual time’ I am losing. So if giving Google some increased access to my personal data allows them to make their services more useful and relevant for me it seems like a good trade. 

I was looking for a quote to close this post. A recently famous Steve Jobs quote came to mind, but instead a far older one is appropriate:

“If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.” – Benjamin Franklin