Internet Privacy: "You're Only Anonymous On The Internet Because Nobody's Tried Very Hard To Figure Out Who You Are"
The headline on this blog post is a quote from my book, "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck." More from that section -- on privacy online -- below. But first...

There's a fantastic quick primer on the tradeoffs in privacy on the Internet by TechDirt's Mike Masnick:

I've talked before about how privacy is not a "thing," it's a tradeoff.

The idea of "perfect" privacy makes no sense, because people reveal all sorts of stuff about themselves all the time because the tradeoff is worth it. For example, just walking out of your house to go to the grocery store is a tradeoff. You give up some amount of privacy (someone can see you leaving your house, others can see what you're buying), because we think it's worth that minimal loss of privacy to get food.

But it's an individual tradeoff based on our own individual decision making -- people who are famous celebrities or hiding from someone who wants to kill them may view the tradeoffs differently. That's why it always bothers me a little when people focus on privacy as if it's a thing, rather than looking at the cost-benefit tradeoffs that each individual needs to make.

But a big reason why privacy debates concerning internet services today are such a big problem is that the tradeoffs aren't as clear or as explicit as they should be. The reason people get upset about privacy issues on internet services isn't so much that they don't like giving up information to get a useful service -- people seem quite happy to do that.

It's that they're not quite clear on what they're giving up and what they're getting back and how to weigh those two things. And that (quite reasonably!) makes people nervous and worried about their "privacy."

A note from Techdirt:

We've teamed up with Namecheap and the EFF to promote Internet Privacy Week and continue the fight to protect your privacy online. Show your support by signing and sharing the new Internet Privacy Bill of Rights.

For every 500 signatures and shares, Namecheap and its partners will give away $5,000 to EFF, up to $25,000.

EFF (the Electronic Frontier Foundation) is a terrific organization -- "defending your rights in the digital world" -- and worth supporting with this minor bit of time and energy.

And on whether you give up anything with your email address -- because I, of course, wondered about that -- Namecheap says this:

We will collect email addresses as a means to verify unique participants. We consider your email as an electronic signature. Participation in this campaign is completely voluntary, and you may choose whether or not to disclose information.

Neither Namecheap nor our partners will share your contact information with anyone outside of this campaign, nor will we use your data for marketing purposes or to contact you outside of this campaign itself.

I write about Internet privacy in "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck", explaining "You're only anonymous on the Internet because nobody's tried very hard to figure out who you are."

Because the Internet puts so much power right at our fingertips and it's so much fun to use, we underestimate the tendency for even otherwise responsible adults with serious jobs to devolve into mouth-breathing chimps who've just been handed the button for an info-nuke.

As Twitter-lovin' disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner discovered, disseminating boner shots far and wide is as easy as spreading your legs and clicking your cameraphone.

As in Weiner's case, people who fall back on what's technically possible as the standard for their behavior typically give the most thought to how to act online after they get in trouble--after they lose their job or a friend or just go medieval on somebody on Face- book in a way they're later ashamed of.

To avoid disaster, you need to come up with personal policies in advance for how you'll fly onine, covering three essential areas:

• Your online identity.

• Privacy: yours and everybody else's.

• How to treat other people online and what to do when
they treat you badly.

Some of my advice on maintaining your privacy online from "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck":

Exactly how public do you want to be? Answering that question takes deciding how closely your online identity should follow your actual identity.

...Figure out parameters for how much of yourself you want to reveal online in comments, photos, and videos--from your name and occupation to your true politics to your naked parts.

Be proactive about articulating these parameters to others in your life so, for example, friends will know that they'll need to ask your permission before tagging you in Facebook photos or perhaps even posting photos that include you.

Remember, every picture tells a story, and your name in a caption on somebody's Facebook photo makes that photo appear on your Facebook page18 and become vis- ible to your Facebook friends.

When it does, it's best that the story it tells (personal best for slamming tequila shots!) doesn't lay waste to the story you told your boss about tending to your sick auntie instead of staying late to tend to his spreadsheets.

Having a clear sense of your boundaries for exposure will also give you a better chance of keeping hold of them should you find yourself in something of a stupor.

Sure, when you've had a few and somebody videotapes you naked and frisky, you can probably sue or maybe even have them prosecuted, but that won't close the barn door after the sex tape of you and Mr. Ed has gone viral on You-Porn.

When considering how much of the real you to share online, err on the side of assuming that whatever you or other people post or e-mail will be speedily copied, pasted, and forwarded to anyone with an Internet connection, because that sometimes happens even when you're sure you've taken stringent precautions.