Alexis Madrigal, The Atlantic:
Behind the details, however, are a tangle of philosophical issues that are at the heart of the struggle between privacy advocates and online advertising companies: What is anonymity? What is identity? How similar are humans and machines? This essay is an attempt to think through those questions.
A very interesting read that delves into the online advertising industry and the questions surrounding our presence. How much of our data do we control? Should we be able to control it? Does anonymity really exist? If not, should we care?
To be honest, I am unsure of my feelings about online privacy. I don’t really think there is evil at play. Advertisers are doing what they’ve always done, just online instead of print and television. Maybe it’s the nascent nature of our digital existence that leaves us uncertain. Only time will tell.