Within the first paragraph of their article, Beldad, Jong, and Steehounder establish an undeniable truth in today’s world, “personal data have become a commodity.” I certainly use my information as currency on an almost daily basis. I trade my email address, age, gender and home address on a weekly basis in exchange for online coupons. I’ve used the authors’ cost-benefit calculations and determined that these 4 pieces of my identity are a fair trade for the savings I get on my living expenses. Bartering with these pieces of my personal information has become so common in my everyday life that I never even consider the risk anymore. The only time I even hesitate in giving out this information is to keep my email address from getting spammed, which my junk filter has mostly eliminated the need for anyway. I draw a hard line when it comes to my social security number, requesting an alternate identifier whenever possible. In this way, I’ve been using the protection motivation described in the article.

Bodle’s piece on Google’s Privacy Practices was a bit eye opening. Apparently I’m paying a hefty price for that spam filter on my Gmail account. Without strong regulation on companies like Google, they have no incentive to discontinue their practice of putting the responsibility of regulating one’s personal information online on the user. I think part of the reason that Google continues this practice is the general public (myself included until now) that make use of Google’s services are blissfully unaware that so much of what they are using Google for is being stored away for someone else’s use. Even when we do become aware, we feel so defeated that we wonder what the point would be of discontinuing use. They already have all of my information anyway, right?

My life is easier because of Google, there is no arguing that. However, with cloud computing making access to my documents easier for me, it is also making the acquisition of my information even easier for companies like Google. At least Google can claim it is not alone in these practices. After all, those with the iPhone should be aware that everything they say to Siri is recorded and stored at Apple. So is it unethical for these companies to write their privacy policies with “rhetorical patterns that render privacy protections ambiguous and misleading” (Bodle 2011)? Whether it is or not, the responsibility of self-censoring in our online activities has fallen to the user to protect our personal information.

In the Ford vs. Jurgenson and Rey exchange, I was persuaded in some aspects by both sides. Jurgenson and Rey claim that “the problem with the continuum model is that an increase in publicity does not necessarily imply a decrease in privacy or vice versa.”(2012) I would agree that this is true, since no one forces you to reveal things about yourself on Facebook. However, by giving people the opportunity to share online, we also give them the opportunity to expose themselves faster, and to a broader audience. The question then becomes, are they more likely to share private parts of their identity with the advent of social media than before? Does a broader audience encourage sharing of more sensitive material? Ford brings up the “meaning management” concept in her response, citing that users will share their information in a way that masks the meaning to parts of their audience they do not want to discern the true meaning of their postings (2012). That supports the idea that we are at least censoring some parts of our lives from everyone in the online community. I haven’t decided which authors I agree with more on publicity and privacy models, but I do believe we are more exposed in today’s world even if we don’t know it. If any of you are Parks and Recreation fans, check out this topical meme from a prior season episode here.