Thought For the Day

[kerravonsen]

You know the saying "those who trade Liberty for Security deserve neither"?
I have another one to add to it: those who trade Privacy for Convenience deserve neither.

Comments

[iulia_linnea.livejournal.com]

I agree, even though it's hard to avoid doing just that without, say, completely avoiding the 'net or a phone, and I admit to still using Gmail even after Google gave up its motto, "Don't be evil."

Who else is trading privacy for convenience? Credit card users? Store loyalty card users? Has something specific happened?

[kerravonsen]

Store loyalty card users was what triggered this post. There's a place I eat regularly which has a loyalty card where you have to register online, that is, give them your details (so that they can sell them to marketeers). That, I want nothing of, and yet EVERY TIME they keep on asking me if I have a card and then the next question is always, inevitably, "do I want a card?" So now I just answer the first question with "No, and I don't want one, I value my privacy."

There is another place where I eat regularly where they have a loyalty card, but it is a very simple one: just a cardboard card that they clip every time you have a meal, and after about ten clips, you get a free meal (and throw away the card and get another one). That kind of loyalty card I am very happy to use, and I do for that place. Especially since these folks are also not pushy about the loyalty cards either.

[iulia_linnea.livejournal.com]

That is always frustrating. Shog usually bores to tears anyone who asks him to sign up for an information-mining loyalty card program; I do what you do, and when pressed, I sic Shog on the person. :P

I'm reminded now that I have a free cheesecake in my wallet if only I'd get myself to that shop. Punch card rewards are love. :D

[sinanju.livejournal.com]

For a long while, after our local supermarket started a loyalty card program, I made a habit of asking for a card every time I went there. I'd fill in a made-up name and email address, get the discount, then trash the card on the way out.

[iulia_linnea.livejournal.com]

*snerk*

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

Both are topical. Here in Europe especially the first one but taking the circumstances, our liberty is threatened by the lack of security...which became necessity...