For me, in my daily life, all of this is completely "private". Google having my data in mass and an identity profile on me that no human will ever specifically look at is just as good as private to me. The fact that computers will be handing this data, not other humans, is an important distinction for me. No human will ever see my individual data in all likelihood.
I don't think the lack of privacy is a problem, but rather the centralized power. It's really tough right now with so much power in information, but the only real information power coming in volume.
Yes, it is. Defining privacy to mean the very opposite of "private" is pure doublethink/newspeak.
> Google having my data
You're not giving your data only to google. You're also giving it to anybody that hacks Google's servers to take their data at any point in the future (and anybody that buys it from the hackers), and any government (or other entity with sufficient power or influence) that orders (legally or illegally) Google to turn over their data, and anybody that Google might sell the data to should they have unfortunate financial troubles. This list will probably grow as the value of data grows and creative new ways to exploit data are discovered.
I commend Google for taking security seriously. You data is probably saver with them than than many business. However, they are still human so they make mistakes. Hacks will happen even with the very best well-funded security teams using impossibly good practices. When governments are involved, it may not even be Google's choice.
You need to remember that data doesn't go away, so the risk of who it may spread to only increases with time.
> other humans
Humans don't need to see your data for it to harm you. Your insurance company doesn't need a human to feed data from Google (or whomever) (possibly blinded through some sort of "rating service"?) through the machine learning and/or "risk assessment" heuristic du jour to raise your rates or deny coverage.
> centralized power
Pretending the world is just[1] - that your data will somehow be limited to only Google - gives Google a lot of power, that will be hard to reclaim. If by some miracle they are able to do better than most people throughout history that acquire power and only use their power for benevolent reasons, the same cannot be said indefinitely into the future.
Focusing on unlikely events is inefficient in that the preparations or measures taken against them often are not worth the expected benefit. Pointing out that there is always risk of improbable events is not always useful especially when mitigating these risks is costly. We increase the chances of being hit by a car when we leave the house or when we jaywalk.
Personally for me, the benefits from using services provided by Google or any other company outweigh the risks of my information falling into the wrong hands. The worst that I can hypothesize would be a political opponent using some data to pin a crime on me and throw me in jail. Or maybe some of this data could lead to me losing my job. Both unlikely scenarios. I am fortunate however because I live in a country where politicians are less likely to abuse their power (still a possibility of course) and I am not a political dissident nor a criminal. The same can't be said for everyone, so for people where the risks are far greater, they take extra precautions because it is worth it for them.
When you (I think, naively) traded your privacy and freedom for their services, you also traded a bit of my privacy and freedom, and that is unacceptable to me.
The same can be said about any of the other big surveillance capitalism companies (facebook, microsoft, etc).
I don't know why you think they will only hypothetically use this information against you. You are bombarded with machine generated attempts at psychological manipulation on a daily basis, and your private information is regularly leaked/sold to bad actors and out of control law enforcement agencies on a continuous basis.
You even say you are lucky you are not a political dissident, so you admit that, in your own mind, you have given up the right to participate in our democracy as you see fit.
I value it different and am fully rational in what I have done. Psychological manipulation? You mean ads and recommended youtube videos? If you could elaborate, this would interest me.
With regards to bad actors and overreaching LE, I really haven't felt the negatives to warrant changing my behaviour.
I have no idea what you mean giving up participating in democracy. How does choosing not to be a dissident mean I have given up the right to participate in the democratic process? I'm not American by the way. I'm in a country where I have my vote and I can speak up against my government without repercussion. If I were in an authoritarian one I'd be much more concerned.
Which benefits? Most of the services Google provides can be replaced for free or for very small amounts of money -- and without giving up your privacy.
Is saving $50-100/yr really worth granting Google the right to store and abuse your data forever, or the risk of your data ending up in the hands of criminals?
This feels like saying "I have nothing to hide".
What matters to me is not the likelihood, but the possibility. Can someone who wants to at a later date, "pull my file" and see it all.
If its true then what we have is a classic example of the panopticon. They can't watch everybody all the time, but they can watch anybody whenever they want, even retroactively. That's bad news.
The US, for example, is one presidency away from complete democratic failure. By which I mean all that data, which now is effectively, "in all likelihood", private via volume, can and will be abused.
Giving up and allowing privacy to fail now only makes disastrous consequences more likely later at the whim of that centralised power you mention.
The "freedom from" elements have been de-emphasised lately as they're extremely unpopular with the right-wing:
"The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world."
we have lost freedom from fear because both politicians and terrorist profit by exploiting it.
I guess we need a middle wing that attempts to preserve as much liberty as possible for as many people as possible regardless of who feels it is unequal or offensive.
I say this because I feel that the fight for equality is in direct opposition to the fight for liberty.
Privacy is the freedom from being watched, from having one's movements and actions and consumption and words observed, tabulated and stored. I hope that one day whether by laws or technological solutions, privacy will again be the norm in our lives.