Privacy is not a soundbite

An unfortunate aspect regarding the privacy discourse is how it has been subverted into a set of meaningless soundbites that detract from actual privacy issues. A commonly used refrain, often used to gatekeep software and services, is about how “they are selling your data”. That’s a gross oversimplification of what privacy is, and actively harms the concept of privacy by framing it as a binary. It takes just a few seconds of critical thinking to watch it fall apart. If a company were to give your data away for free, would that be acceptable? If they use your data as leverage over other entities, would that be acceptable? If they’re selling your data, but you’ve given them fake data, is that acceptable? How about if you want your data to be sold, but also want to be paid for it? These are deliberately rhetorical questions, not meant to be answered, but to illustrate that the evaluation of privacy is not a single question. Another often used expression is “If it’s free, you are the…