But is this view the result of rational consideration, with full knowledge of all the implications, or is it something these young people have been drawn into without stopping to think about the implications? Or worse: without the full implications even being clear?

In other words: is this really a demographic shift we're seeing, or simply a stage-of-life effect? Will the same teens holding the quoted view of privacy recoil in horror at their actions twenty years later? Will these privacy choices alter the courses of the lives in ways they wish they could later undo? If so, then it seems unreasonable to wave away this mass choice as morally or societally neutral.

Simply put: is privacy a public safety issue or not? If it is, then an argument can be made to restrict young people's (and even grown adults') freedom to choose their "policy" on it, just as many societies do with drugs, alcohol, driving, etc. I think Charlie's post makes a pretty strong argument that privacy is a matter of public safety and societal well-being.

Putting words in his mouth, his argument might be that companies like Facebook are inducing people to relinquish their privacy rights without the full knowledge of the long-term implications -- just as profit-seeking tobacco companies induced large numbers of people to smoke without full knowledge of the long-term implications. Many governments now see the public policy advantages to making the consequences of smoking clear to the public; the same is not yet true of privacy rights.

the implications of making this kind of data public are not going to be clear. The data can be combined with other data or mined later in unexpected and surprising ways.

Most people are surprised at how few data points are required to uniquely identify them. Most people will cheerfully enter their first name, family name and date of birth into any website that asks for it.

A while ago I heard the term "retroactive privacy invasion" applied to things such as good cheap facial recognition becoming available and being applied to existing archives of social photos or surveillance video.

We can accept this fact and educate ourselves about the implications, or we can stick our heads in the sand and hope it all goes away.

In this specific example, I would hope this app gets widely publicized, not shut down. I would rather more people understand the implications of social networks, instead of trying to protect "the innocent" from the inevitable. A sleezeball that uses this app to manipulate women will likely cause considerable pain. But I expect women would adapt rather quickly and be less likely to trust some random guy in a bar just because he seems to know everything about them. This technology can also be used in reverse. A woman could run an analysis on the guy they just met and verify that he is actually who he claims to be.

The technology will be developed, either in secret or in public. I would rather everyone have the tool, rather than the few that want it bad enough to develop it in secret.

This change in privacy will likely cause social upheaval and change they way we interact with people. Is that a bad thing, or is it just different?

In my opinion, regulation will never beat technology. You can slow it down for a time, but the consequences of our progress are eventually realized.

The stories about how this generation doesn't care about privacy have been around for years now and have become common wisdom. The stories about this generation is actually learning the hard way about privacy are few and far between, but by my count, growing rapidly. Stories about groups of young-20-somethings who don't let each other take out their video phones while they are partying, stories like this, they're only going to continue to grow, and grow, and grow.

Humans have not changed. The logic of privacy has not changed. The fact that information about you is power over you has not changed. The only change is one generation thrown to the wolves so quickly and thoroughly that they didn't have time to ease into it safely, and in my opinion the likely end result in five or ten years is a generation more paranoid about privacy than any we've seen in a while, because everyone will have a personal story about how they were socially screwed by the lack of privacy, and not just vague habits picked up by tradition.

The illusion of social networking is that you're performing in front of a window such that you can see who's viewing you. You're not. You're performing in front of a two-way mirror -- others can see in, but you cannot see out. You can only view their own two-way mirrors.

The telling bit for me is that the companies who are most interested in sucking down personal information, Facebook, but even moreso Google, put extreme controls over outward flows of their data.

Privacy is a defense against the gossip mill. Infusing the gossip mill with digital might isn't going to make the desirability of that defense go away.

I'm not so sure if most people actually mind if their old high school friends are gossiping about their latest relationship status update. Facebook functions as a personal PR tool to "get out in front" of the gossip. But perhaps you're right and things are changing.

Oh look, the Fully General Social Conservative Argument.

I've never understood the mindset that allows one to label an argument with a particular political label, then dismiss it based on the label you just applied. It seems the very definition of closed-minded, to me. Even on further examination I really don't get what you're getting at... did it become "progressive" dogma that personal privacy is irrelevant sometime in the last five minutes or something? Progressive dogma that we should just roll over and accept that large companies are going to invade our privacy for our gain and it's "socially conservative" to think otherwise?

Technology changes, but the base stock of humanity doesn't on any usefully observable timespan. (Yet.)

And the point I made is that you can say the same thing about racial desegregation, the abolition of slavery, no-fault divorce, wearing jeans in the office, or the social acceptance of homosexuals.

Much of the current discussion revolving around Facebook is just a re-treading of discussions that happened in the late 1980s / early 1990s with The WELL and first generation Internet sites and "online diaries" (before they were labled "blogs"). Several prolific early personalities emerged, sharing much about their lives. Most of them have since drastically reduced, or entirely eliminated, their online profiles. All that I'm aware of are much more circumspect and targeted in what they share.

And for the most part, they're now in their 40s, 50s, or later (a few exceptionally precocious ones perhaps their mid/late 30s).

What's happened? The Bush administration (Ari Fleischer's "[people should] watch what they do and what they say") marriages ... and divorces, business startups ... and failures, lawsuits, personal feuds, trolls, stalkers. For some, exposure to less liberal regimes, whether in the Middle East of today, Latin America of the 70s and 80s, Africa of the 60s, Eastern Europe of the 50s and60s, Germany of the 30s an 40s, Soviet Russia of the 20s and 30s.....

Some of us recall dystopian movies or short stories / SF from a few decades previous suggesting that a global, all-knowing network might be something other than a benevolent overlord. And noted a certain Mark Zuckerberg's consistently condescending attitude toward his users, from Harvard days forward, his consistent trashing of privacy settings, association with at best questionably ethical Russian investors. Etc.

So yeah, I think today's kids will get over their social fixation. It's going to take a while though.

You are right that real research is needed, and not just spouting "facts" that are likely heavily influenced by ageism. If anybody has any real data (not just wrt FB) on how the 55+ crowd interacts with technology, the web, and social sites, I'd love pointers. The only thing I've read is that actual usage decreases significantly through a person's sixties, then starts increasing again at about 70.

How is that a counterexample? Is she is representative of the majority? After all, if 80% don't understand privacy on Facebook (and I am one) then perhaps she's one of the 20%.

Halloween will be much easier this year; I can come as a mythical creature without needing a costume!