Its not like people are victims here, for the most part they've chosen the "free" privacy violating services over the paid ones every time.
If people cared about their privacy, this wouldn't be the case, they'd be willing to pay for useful services. There was a chance that a market could have developed for services that protected privacy, but thats long gone.
At this point kids growing up are used to the idea of a world withoit secrets. Its terrifying to people over 30, but it could lead to a better world, because even those in power cannot escape the watchful eye of Big Brother.
That would be a fine argument if the majority of computer users actually understood what tracking is being performed and how it is performed. Most computer users have no idea how they are tracked, nor do they understand how they can be tracked.
People generally do not know how their computers work, and companies take advantage of that ignorance when they track people. Most people do not understand that they are trading privacy for access to websites and web apps.
"At this point kids growing up are used to the idea of a world [without] secrets"
Nonsense. Kids just have a different idea about what should be kept secret. There are still plenty of in-the-closet gay teenagers whose friends understand that they are being trusted with a secret. Plenty of kids have odd habits they do not want to tell their friends about. Teenagers still keep secrets from their parents -- that is basically an invariant. There are many college students who work hard to keep their Facebook profiles "clean" in an attempt to present the best image possible to potential future employers.
What has changed is the meaning of keeping things secret. A 15 year old in-the-closet gay teenager most likely has no idea that "deleting" a "private" message sent over Facebook does not actually delete the message from Facebook's servers. That same teenager probably has no idea that his public "friends" list is sufficient to determine that he is gay with high probability. That is the problem society faces right now: people want to keep things secret, but it is very difficult to actually do so.
I think that eventually society will adapt and people will learn how to keep secrets in an age of widespread surveillance. It is inevitable: eventually there will be so many incidents of embarrassing secrets being revealed by these various companies that people will start to use technologies to hamper the tracking.
That's an unfair criticism. If you look upthread, a commenter points out[1] that the CNN page for this article includes at least 10 third-party tracking scripts. Most people are unaware that tracking is going on at this scale, how it works, or what they can do about it.
Watch this video[2] of a bunch of people who don't know what a browser is. That's most people. Do you think they understand how internet tracking works? Hardly. You and I, as techies, can perhaps make an informed decision, but most people can't and if you step outside the bubble you'll see that.
It's never okay to blame the users for hidden privacy consequences.
If people cared about their privacy, this wouldn't be the case, they'd be willing to pay for useful services. There was a chance that a market could have developed for services that protected privacy, but thats long gone.
At this point kids growing up are used to the idea of a world withoit secrets. Its terrifying to people over 30, but it could lead to a better world, because even those in power cannot escape the watchful eye of Big Brother.