The only reason you have any privacy at all is because someone hasn't bothered to look through your information yet.

This lack of privacy has even become a cottage industry. Phone companies charge you a fee (per month) to keep an unlisted number, credit card companies offer you account protection for when you lose your card (Read: when some cracker steals 5 millions records of customer data from their servers and sells it to the Russian Mafia). Supermarkets and bookstores give you "discounts" to use their niche cards.

People still scream about their loss of privacy, but really the effect of the discussion is the same as lamenting about the loss of your favorite sports team. With wide adoption of things like gmail, the people have spoken, and they say to hell with privacy.

Sure, Google has a nice sentiment about privacy that no human ever reads your email, that they don't show or sell the information. And you know what? I believe them that they won't abuse your email. But think about something here.... They say you should NEVER delete your email but search and create views instead? Great, what happens in 20 years when Google ends up in junk bonds and John Q. Tyrant, Inc. buys the assets. OOPS! Now you have 20 years of billions of people's emails you can cross correlate to find all sorts of goodies in there and a search engine powerful enough to find that Jack T. Smith once spoke against the State in .035 seconds. The fact that Jack T. Smith has a bad heart because of all of his emails with his Doctor will only provide a simple means of making it look like an accident....

Think about gmail, hotmail, and yahoo email services for a second. You've offloaded the most personal and private things about you to a third party company who will do what it takes to make profit. They know the countries you've visited, the people with which you communicate, whether you take your daughter to piano lessons, if your mother's sick, everything. You can make the same argument about having your mail kept at a place of employment or anywhere that isn't a direct delivery to your home computer. Hmm.... I speak of they like a schizophrenic speaks of they, except sadly, I'm sane. The real deal is that people have given up their privacy and in fact expect to give it up.

So, now that the cat's out of the bag concerning your entire personal history in many aspects of your life, might as well teach the cat to hunt mice. Know what I mean?

End of Line.