Nick Carr: Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty, With Real Dangers | Hacker News Reader

Nick Carr: Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty, With Real Dangers

online.wsj.com

27 pointsyarapavan12 comments

This is Murdoch's attempt to hurt the online ad world which subsidizes many sites Murdoch thinks should be paid. And because they are not paid, they are hurting sites that are going paid...such as the WSJ.

Ah Murdoch.

I dislike Murdoch (and WSJ) as much as the next guy, but from what I understand, Nicholas Carr has been writing this type of articles all over the place recently (not only on Murdoch's newspapers) to promote his book "The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains".

Fair enough. Though I think this goes beyond Nicholas Carr. WSJ's been doing hit pieces on cookies and online advertising pretty regularly the past few months. In that case, Carr may be someone they invited to join their attack team.

If you try hard enough eventually you will find a reason to justify a conclusion you have already reached in your mind. While I can only assume why Carr was invited to write on WSJ on this specific topic, it would seem that promoting his book would be the most probable reason.

Carr has some very valid points however.

Note that it is unlikely that WSJ would invite Carr so that he could promote his book. WSJ doesn't really give a shit about Carr. They do give a shit about certain stances and promoting them.

The WSJ also ran an editorial taking the opposite view, which I just submitted - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1586680

The Wall Street Journal is famous for always having been a on-line subscription site and apparently a successful one. Murdoch would only care about this in the context of his trying to transform the WSJ into a replacement for The New York Times ... and I'm not sure how that would work....

(On the other hand he has more than a few other newpaper properties where he thinks he has a problem, something he's experimenting with by putting the London Times behind a pay-wall in stages.)

I think privacy would become less and less important over the years. There is no much harm from lack of privacy. There is a bad component in privacy violation though: it's when privacy is violated _exclusively_ by some powerful entity, such as government. But if privacy is just not there and life of all individuals is available to the public -- there is almost no real harm in it.

It might just be one of my personal pet peeves, but when I read "The incorporation of GPS transmitters into cellphones" I automatically switched to the assumption that the author is an idiot. (or at the very least, so careless with his writing that he's unlikely to be saying anything worth spending the time to read)

''The very idea of privacy is under threat''

it is very possible that the author wrote this piece -or at least he had it in his laptop- while he was in an airport waiting to get scanned - or at least once in his lifetime embarked on an airplane in an airport - while he was in an airport his privacy is not --under threat-- he has -no- right to privacy - his lagguage is opened - his body is scanned naked -- his privacy is violated to the core and he can do nothing about it - except to take the humiliation and rationalize it later

-or-

the author may be walking in the streets of new york -or any big city- where he is vidotaped non-stop - he has no privacy - some entity is violating his privacy by videotaping him and he can do nothing about it - his privacy is not -under threat- his privacy is non-existent -because- his privacy -is- violated - he has no privacy while he is walking in the streets of new york

you may say that his home is his castle -and- he has his -right- to privacy at home - even this is not true

the fact that he appears to have privacy at home is because the enity who -owns- his right to privacy does -not- care what he does at home --but-- if the entity who owns his right to privacy -suspects- that he is doing something in his -castle- that he is not supposed to do according to the entity who owns his right to privacy - his privacy at home will be violated just like his privacy is violated in the airport

the fact that at a certain place at a certain time --supposedly at home-- he has a -semblance- of privacy does not mean that his privacy is not violated - he has lost his ---right--- to privacy long time ago

i dont know how to explain this - if he had his -right- to privacy no one -can- violate his privacy -but- his privacy is violated all the time and he can do nothing about it - this means that he has no -right- to privacy

-because-

his privacy can be violated any time by the entity who own his privacy

the right to privacy is not something that you have it here now and not there and then -- as a human being he has no -right- to privacy

if anyone can explain what i am trying to say in a better language i would be most grateful

I laughed reading this because I read all the dashes and pauses as William Shatner explaining privacy. Reread it in that frame, and you'll love it!

I do think you're wrong though. Rights have limits, even rights we can all pretty much agree aren't be violated regularly. When it's necessary to violate someone's rights, we normally have strict procedures in place for doing so, and legal remedies in case someone oversteps.

I think the issue with privacy is that the exceptions are too many, and the remedies too weak.

--with privacy exceptions are too many - and remedies too weak--

well - thank you for putting so well what i was trying to say in my lengthy comment

i interpret your insightful statement as saying that a human -body- has no privacy and no right to privacy -because- the entity who violates the privacy of a human body is the same entity who -defines- the exceptions --and-- the remedies

human body has no right to -define- what human privacy is

and there is only 1 entity who violates the privacy of human body - that entity may have different -names- but it is the same being

the being who has the absolute right to violate the privacy of a human body is the --same-- entity who also -enforces- the -remedies-

--and-- who owns your privacy -is- your master

a slave has no privacy

in other words the owner of your right to privacy tells you --i grant you privacy but -i- reserve the right to violate your privacy as i wish-- what kind of right to privacy is that

which means that - that entity who violates the privacy of a human body has the freedom and right to violate the privacy of the human body - if that entity -owns- the right to privacy of the human body -then- human body -does not- own its own privacy

might is right - and whoever has the right to -define- is the mightiest

in the case of privacy - your right to privacy as a human being can only be violated by an entity who is not a human being - so a mother entering her daughters room without knocking - this is -not- the kind of violation of privacy we are talking about - in the airport your right to privacy is violated by an entity who is not human but a -bodyless- human

or maybe - we -are- talking about the same -kind- of privacy as mother-daughter privacy - the mother enters her daughters room without knocking to show that she -the mother- can violate her -daughters- privacy and -therefore- she -the mother- is in charge

for some unfortunate reason the authority -loves- to prove again and again that -she- is the authority -and- for some reason authority appears to be -she-

the same goes with human body - the entity who owns the right to privacy of a human body must show -again and again- that -it- or that bodyless and -therefore- genderless entity who owns the human right of privacy - must humiliate the human body again and again by scanning the naked human -body- and violate the most sacred privacy of human body and prove that human body has no privacy - to prove that -it- is the owner of the human right of privacy

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