The sad part of life is, we all go through the stages. It's just that a lot of us are still in denial...
Privacy is an interesting beast. A lot of people (me included) believe the Scott McNealy world-view of “it doesn't exist anyway”. The catch-cry seems to be when in doubt, make it public. There are problems though, and this relates to when your content involves other people.
Julian’s Oddthinking article tries to get at some of the subtleties in dealing with others when working on our own content. I also know some people who are fairly conservative in having, for example, pictures of themselves taken and even published among a small group of friends. If it were up to them, before I published anything, I’d either heavily self-censor, or pass my pictures by them before doing anything rash like letting other people look at it. These aren’t luddites I’m talking about, but technical, highly intelligent and respectable people.
As someone who writes a lot (often about people I know) and takes a fair few photos (with other people in them) this weighs heavily on my mind. Even to check that every picture (or piece of writing) represents everyone in a way they want to be represented is a mammoth and undefined task (esp. considering what some take offense at). Of course, my natural reaction is to foam at the mouth and call them names.
Note that I’m not talking about my own privacy here. Pretty much all my details are probably pretty easy to figure out from this blog and the things that it links to. I figure the data here is mostly a wash for my rep, but more importantly, that I have nothing to hide, and that eventually we’ll move towards a more honest society where people don’t try and hide their past. Even Alastair has come clean and writes about himself in far more detail than previously. When writing, however, I take some effort to anonymise the people I know, the place I work, etc. so that they will not be offended. I tend to self-censor when taking pictures as well...
... but I hate it. It really ticks me off...
On the one hand, I want to be pragmatic. From the writing point of view I think I can do OK, but on the photo front I’m looking for a pragmatic solution, like Julian, so I can tell people to mind their own privacy. However, this sort of bugs me as well, because it makes them look good in comparison to me, because they’re hiding their downsides, whereas my life is here for all to see. Far worse, they’re pushing back the future I want by keeping things private and hidden rather than open and honest.
On the other hand, maybe this is like Alcoholics Anonymous. Maybe this is me in denial. Maybe I’m angry, not at them, but at myself for not having painted myself in a better light, having written shiny blog articles and taken pictures of shiny happy people — of me at the beach with a perfect set of abs. All because I bought the crap people tell you in school and movies where they say it’s what’s inside that counts.
There are legitimate reasons for worrying about my privacy, if only because having this much written about me makes it easier for someone else to commit fraud using my details (identity fraud or otherwise). This isn’t very difficult. All it takes is my birthdate and my name, and most companies will hand over whatever access you want. Worse, if they someone really hated me they could fairly easily ruin my life, from knowing I have a deathly fear of catfish to worming their way into my family and convincing them that I am Satan (not that hard, considering my family). There are many worrying possibilities. I wonder why anyone would want to, but there are people like this in the world.
The most common case, however, is probably more that some midget reads that I hate midgets (or something) and he tells all his midget friends and they call A Current Affair and then I have to call Media Watch or something...