Busting the myth that people don’t care about privacy

There’s a fundamental disconnect in the discussion about online privacy.  We are told that people don’t care about their online privacy.  Evidence of people not reading terms of service, blindly accepting all permissions on their apps, and even filling out detailed questionnaires in return for an actual cookie, seem to support this position.  But in the aftermath of a breach, or simply a news story pointing out how invasive the Facebook Messenger permissions are, the reaction implies a strong expectation of better privacy.  It is as if people have an expectation of privacy but a contradictory expectation of not being required to do anything to get it.  These two things seem mutually exclusive and yet they exist simultaneously.  How can that be?  As with most mysteries of the universe, the answer involves some physics.

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