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GeneralRe: Volkswagen 'Cheat Switch' Pin
Joe Woodbury24-Sep-15 6:11
professionalJoe Woodbury24-Sep-15 6:11 
GeneralTo The Guy At Microsoft Who.... Pin
Kevin Marois23-Sep-15 12:02
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dan!sh 23-Sep-15 19:44
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den2k8823-Sep-15 20:52
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GoldfishBowl23-Sep-15 20:48
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Corporal Agarn24-Sep-15 0:49
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QuestionWhy is Everyone So Scared of Anonymized Data Collection? Pin
Mike Marynowski23-Sep-15 9:12
professionalMike Marynowski23-Sep-15 9:12 
Please don't set me on fire. Serious question. Why is everyone's "privacy" of such grave concern to them, in the case of anonymous usage data?

I understand that mistakes happen, oversights happen and it's possible that personal information could slip in, or based on a process of elimination from the set of data you might be able to narrow down to a likely person, etc. But in the case of agreeing to have anonymized data collected, anyone actually doing so with that data would seem to me to be an illegal use of that data, so of what practical use would this be?

There are obviously cases where a data collection policy goes too far and the risk that personal details of importance might leak is too high, but everyone FREAKS OUT and uninstalls a piece of software that adds "You agree that we can collect basic aggregate usage data in the application such as the frequency that each menu option is used." OMGGG MY PRIVACY HAS BEEN VIOLATED!! Slight exaggeration but you know what I mean. This kind of data is used to help improve the application you are using, why wouldn't you want to help the developers make it better?

I would like to demonstrate with a specific example of a privacy concern that completely eludes me. Gmail once upon a time decided to start scanning the contents of your emails to deliver targeted ads that are more likely to be of interest to you. Everyone lost their bananas over this.

WHY??? They aren't sharing the contents of your emails to anyone, nobody is reading it, they are using a bot to scan the email for keywords and match an ad to it. People are so scared of targeted advertising, I don't get it. If there is going to be a portion of the screen dedicated to showing an ad, wouldn't you rather it be filled with developer tools or services you might *actually* be interested in instead of a random ad? I know I would.

Why all the privacy hysteria these days?

*Ducks and hides under desk in preparation of being attacked by crowd with pitchforks and torches*

EDIT (2015/09/24 11:02 AM) - EPILOGUE: I guess for the most part my question has been answered. There are several compounding factors that add to all the problems:
- corporate misuse of the data
- companies "promising" to anonymize the data but failing to actually do so through malice or ineptitude
- leaks of this misused and improperly anonymized data (added 11:34 AM)
- and one *really* big problem that I neglected to take into account, mostly because it hasn't become as big a deal where I'm from as the US: government access to the *all* the data from *all* the companies, effectively allowing them to de-anonymize much of the data through cross referencing

I will concede that as a concern to the well being of the general public, this makes almost all types of default data collection policies something to be worried about.

Personally, in the rather few and far between instances that I actually care about my privacy, I take precautions that I'm confident keep me protected from being identifiable. We can't expect that of the general user base though, so I now definitely agree that this should not be allowed to be the default.

Me, I will continue to check that little box that says "I agree to submit anonymous usage data to help blah blah blah" for the benefit of the developers and thus ultimately the users (including me).

Thanks CP Smile | :)

modified 24-Sep-15 11:37am.

AnswerRe: Why is Everyone So Scared of Anonymized Data Collection? Pin
Jörgen Andersson23-Sep-15 9:19
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Ian Shlasko23-Sep-15 9:22
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Mike Marynowski23-Sep-15 9:42
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Ian Shlasko23-Sep-15 10:16
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PIEBALDconsult23-Sep-15 10:47
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Jeremy Falcon23-Sep-15 9:34
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Mike Marynowski23-Sep-15 9:41
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Jeremy Falcon23-Sep-15 9:45
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Jeremy Falcon23-Sep-15 9:47
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Mladen Janković23-Sep-15 9:45
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Mike Marynowski23-Sep-15 10:03
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Mladen Janković23-Sep-15 10:56
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Maximilien23-Sep-15 10:03
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Johnny J.23-Sep-15 10:05
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Weylyn Cadwell23-Sep-15 10:53
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Eddy Vluggen23-Sep-15 10:43
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Mike Marynowski24-Sep-15 5:11
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