I’m working on a post about online privacy. It was originally going to be a couple paragraphs and then a link to a recent essay in The Atlantic on the subject. But my thoughts are meandering and expanding, so I’ll just share the article now and post my words later.
Alexis Madrigal looks at one of the most basic elements of the Internet that most of us know little about: how advertisers attempt to track our every cyber-move.
But increasingly I think these issues — how we move “freely” online, or more properly, how we pay one way or another — are actually the leading edge of a much bigger discussion about the relationship between our digital and physical selves. I don’t mean theoretically or psychologically. I mean that the norms established to improve how often people click ads may end up determining who you are when viewed by a bank or a romantic partner or a retailer who sells shoes.