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Mike Marynowski wrote: There's tons of examples of data collection gone wrong, I know, but I'm specifically talking about very limited and targeted usage of data collection.
What really constitute limited, targeted and anonymized data usage? It might be very limited and targeted usage (if you choose to believe), but what happens when sh*t hits the fan? AOL data supposed to be anonymous.
Another example that I've just remembered: Motorola Is Listening[^]
I don't know what their privacy policy looked like, but I'm sure as hell it didn't say they were collecting passwords and send them over unsecured HTTP channel 
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The problem is that we (as consumers) do not know that a company will remove non-anonymous data from their anonymous data;
(grossly exaggerated) Most company will probably just have a SQL query with anonymous data from a large database.
I'd rather be phishing!
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Nobody wants anybody else to know how much Pr0n they have collected! 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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But, I'm already running out of the GBs!
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Mike Marynowski wrote: WHY??? They aren't sharing the contents of your emails to anyone
Yes, they are.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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The particular feature I'm referencing has nothing to do with that though.
Posted an epilogue edit to my original post.
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Take it to the Soap Box.
In my opinion... the biggest problem is vagueness and a total lack of enforcibility.
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Why would I do that? I prefer a civil discussion and this isn't a rant.
I suppose I'm starting to see the problem but freaking out about a reasonable clause in the EULA isn't going to help the situation. If company's receive tons of backlash for even the most basic aggregate data collection then they will just do it without letting you know. Especially the kind of company that will tell you they are only collecting aggregate data but collecting more than just that. The chances of being caught are pretty low.
I think perhaps some regulations should be put into place about *exactly* how aggregate data or anonymized data must be stored. I'm not particularly versed in this area so if someone knows more about existing regulations in this regard I would be curious to know. I did a bunch of work in credit card processing and what you can store, how to store it, and how to use is it outlined in exacting detail when getting a new system certified.
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It's Politically Charged.
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Not really, I just want to know what reason people have for personally being worried about basic data collection policies. People aren't going to start throwing personal shots at each other because someone doesn't care about their privacy. We aren't discussing abortions here...
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Mike Marynowski wrote: Why all the privacy hysteria these days?
Because, because, because. That's why, that's why, that's why. You can tell people til you're blue in the face that they release more 'private' information about themselves every time they use a debit or credit card, make a phone call, register to vote, join a library, or apply for a driver's licence or passport, but people are basically incredibly dense when it comes to risk assessment of any kind. According to recent worries, after all, we should all be wandering in the desert with mad cow disease, those of us that somehow managed to avoid dying of AIDS or bird flu that is! Hysteria sells papers, panic is an economic opportunity like no other! The last thing you want to be doing is attempting to muddy the waters with fact and logic. Just hunker down, see out the storm, and wait for somebody to come up with something new for people to get themselves all het up about, then count all the money you made from selling the tin hats!
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The privacy matter is not hysteria 
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Because my business is my business! If I wanted all my stuff out on the internet for everyone's perusal, I would give it to my ex. 
New version: WinHeist Version When you have eliminated the JavaScript, whatever remains must be an empty page. Unknown
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I guess I mostly just don't care, I'm generally an open book, but everything spoken about in this thread has cleared up the issue to the general public for me. I posted an epilogue edit to my original post with my final stance
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In practice I pretty much have the same stance as you in your epilogue. But it pays to be aware. The danger comes in when when it's inappropriately used to catalog you. For instance, on Facebook, I will look at a lot of conservative articles even though I'm not conservative because I believe true knowledge comes from knowing both sides. So now Facebook continually suggests articles along those lines for me. It still weirds me out when Facebook is able to access what I've viewed on Ebay or Amazon and adds pop up with those items in my feed.
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???
No troll  Posted an epilogue edit to my original post to summarize my new feelings on the issue.
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Because it isn't anonymous.
Case in point, I'm writing a website for a relatively innocuous data gathering site for a non-profit related to providing services, assistance, etc., for pregnant/nursing moms. The client asked me to have some of the data gathering to be actually anonymous (in this case, simple survey questions, like how valuable did you find the services and what was your experience at group meetings.) To make the data actually anonymous, I have to make sure that the data is stored in a way that is truly anonymous -- again, trivial in my case but the underlying table cannot have any references to the participant that answered the survey. Technically, even a timestamp, necessary for doing reports for a specific time period, could be used to associate the anonymous data with other tables that do maintain participant information, especially if there is a timestamp in those tables that could be used to correlate when the records were inserted into the database.
Most ORM's will nowadays automatically add a "created at" and "updated at" timestamp behind the scenes, or worse, introduce a foreign key without my explicitly specifying an FK. In my particular case, I'm not using a 3rd party ORM (preferring my own orm-less solution), so I know exactly what the database is persisting. Even so, the temptation was there to associate the anonymous data with the participant internally but just not reveal that association through any user-accessible data mining / reporting features. But then, the data isn't really anonymous, is it?
The point being, unless the developer things very carefully about how to ensure that the data is truly anonymous, it probably isn't.
Marc
So,
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I'm generally pretty open and don't care much for my own privacy, always hit the "submit usage data to us to help us blah blah" button in hopes of helping out the developers, and never run into anything that would make notice that my data has been misused. I suppose I may have never known, i.e. that ad card I got in the mail for printing services a week ago from may have been due to recent searches for printing services, who knows right?
That said, all the replies including yours and some further reading has changed my perspective on the matter. My thoughts are summarized in an epilogue edit to my original post Thanks Marc
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I agree with both your comments as well as many of the people who have responded to them.
The problem is not with anonymous data collection itself but often how it is used. Corporations, for the most part are interested in making money, though there are quite a number that are there simply for the power. However, as many have already suggested you cannot expect most corporations to limit their data collections to benign endeavors. A lot of "evil" people exist in most US corporations today and this has been well documented. The result is that many of these people will often find ways to use such data for their own personal benefit.
Regarding governments, especially the US government, the reasoning behind data collection is not benign in the least. It arose due to technology innovation and was immediately used for detrimental purposes to everyone. Governments, ever in the capture of corporations now seek to use such information both for non-constitutional aims as well as the aggrandizement of US policy and corporate bottom lines.
The result of this entanglement raises the stakes of personal privacy quite substantially for many people and with good reason.
Now, there are two data collections in both spheres; one which can be used and the other that can't. Corporations performing data collection are primarily interested in "targeted data", that which shows a pattern for an individual in order to produce a profit oriented endeavor such as an advertisement. However, data that governments collect; again especially that of the US, cannot be used because it simply cannot be mined effectively enough to present accurate conclusions. There is simply too much of it without any targeted reasoning behind it. As a result, even NSA analysts have openly stated that yes, they have all this data but it is of no use since they don't have the ability to research it effectively. All of this is simply done for money that goes into the pockets of technology and hardware vendors and for no other reason.
Nonetheless, this mix of government and corporate spying on individuals, most of whom are law abiding citizens in their countries, can come of no good since there is absolutely no way to hold any of these entities accountable for what they are doing until the worst happens, a data breach, which is happening increasingly to both government and corporate institutions.
Do you see where this is all going? It ain't good !
Steve Naidamast
Black Falcon Software, Inc.
blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
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Very good points, which I think for me were the "aha" turning points. My revised perspective on the matter is summarized in an epilogue edit to my original post Thanks for your response.
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I'm with you, bro... I have much better things to put my attention on than worrying about my privacy.
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Can't tell if sarcastic, but if not, then I'm kinda in the same boat. I just don't actually really care. Go ahead, read my brain waves remotely and send me telepathic advertisements, as long as you pay me  (okay, I'm kidding, that's obviously too far  )
If it became a serious nuisance to me I'd start caring, but I don't think it's gone that far. Money made by targeting me is ultimately, due to market forces, making the products cheaper or free.
Based on all the replies and some further reading though I understand the concern with any kind of data collection for the general public. I summarized my new feelings in an edit to my original post.
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