Understand the context of privacy - Part 1
Jinfo Blog

26th November 2007

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It is said that the primary commodity in the information economy is information. As the Internet becomes an important and ubiquitous part of daily life for more and more people around the world, personal data pours into the Internet and is increasingly targeted for commercial exploitation. On the one hand, it's the online consumers and information seekers who continuously expose that personal data consciously or unconsciously. On the other hand some of the most talented brains have devoted to develop technically sophisticated solutions to capture, mine, and use such data for good and for bad. It's part of the dynamics of the information economy. It's not simply good or bad. Privacy protection isn't just about not giving away personal data, nor is it about "don't use personal data" for anything. It depends on the context. And that context constitutes many factors. No doubt that privacy is a global issue. Being global also implies the need to understand local variances. One of the questions I'd ask is what kind of data is considered private by whom with what kind of cultural background. Cultural differences mean people have different privacy boundaries and tolerance levels for making personal data known. "How old are you" or "how is your salary" could be questions that may be asked and answered in many more informal situations in China than in the U.S. Age is also a frequent piece of public information in Europe when media reports about someone, be it a small news flash in a gratis newspaper or an in-depth story in a golden-cover publication, in print and online. Information that is less guarded in the offline world is likely less of a problem when it is taken online. However that does not mean finding individual's salary information for a research professional would be easier in China than in the US, as the described exposure of such data in China takes place mostly at a personal level and embedded in contexts that have little to do with systematic data collection. In addition, the collectivism of a society like China greatly influences the information sharing behavior not only in an organizational context but also down at a practical personal level. Politically privacy laws and legislations vary as well in different countries and regions. More in the next post.

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