via TMI Nation – Reason Magazine.
…But what may be most unnerving about the Web is not how it empowers malicious smear merchants but how it standardizes chronic self-disclosure through mechanisms as innocuous as Facebook “likes,” and how it allows content aggregators to amass the tiny truths we disclose about ourselves in ways we can neither predict nor control. Imagine car insurers monitoring your tweetstream to see how often you use Foursquare to check-in at bars at least 30 miles from your apartment. Imagine dating sites assigning you a narcissism quotient based on how often you review hair salons and Pilates instructors on Yelp.com.
As indiscreetly as we live now, it is possible that in 2013 we may look back to 2011 as a golden era of privacy. Flickr, Facebook, and other social media sites today are filled with millions of photos that could prove embarrassing in certain contexts, but for the most part the people in those photos remain unidentified. That’s changing fast. “When combined with facial recognition and the power of Google to find obscure information, the possibility of damage to reputation is obvious,” Fertik writes. “Anyone photographed (accidentally or intentionally) near an adult bookstore could be identified by name and made subject to ridicule by his peers…
The Grey Enigma 