It is actually not like you peering through his window to see and note down what you rib one out.

It's more like when I have a massive orgy with lots of drugs at my place and I invited a bouncer, who is really good at statistics, to keep track of who is coming in and who are leaving immediately. The bouncer is also keeping track of what each person is doing, and letting me know periodically. And you both are invited for a night of drug fueled insane sex.

From my perspective, I am doing this to make sure everyone is having fun at my party. From the bouncer's perspective, he is there just to collect stats and let me know. He is not there to invade my privacy. I want to do that. I hired the bouncer.

I think that is more is an accurate description.

The story is only outrage-inducing because you hired a well-known bouncer whose dayjob - of which everyone is aware - is being a security guard at a mall, observing everyone as they do their groceries and banking.

You are the site owner. The bouncer works for you.

Your users didn't hire the bouncer and don't want to be tracked. Secretly, the bouncer may use this data for nefarious purposes. You can't control how the bouncer will use the data.

Exactly, especially if the bouncer comes to work for you for free. Which is what Google and Facebook analytics platforms do: they are free because they benefit from the collected information in ways beyond your control.

What you forgot to mention was that the bouncer does this for free and has a day job publishing tabloids.

And none of the other orgy participants understand this. And OP may not fully understand it either.

There's nothing I enjoy more than a bunch of nerds analyzing a metaphor to death.

My dads mantra used to be, “if it seems too good to be true, it probably is”. Now, I find I must consistently remind him- if it’s “free” (as in beer, not speech) you’re almost definitely paying for it.

Related, when consuming news, if the story seems to involve ridiculous levels of stupidity or malice, the truth is most likely much more mundane and much more reasonable.

That's the site's perspective.

The outrage is from the user's perspective. It's no different from being peeped on.

Sure. But unless you go balls to the wall about it, you're always being "peeped on" when you're online.

I think that's the broader problem that the article is trying to get at. Pornography is just an example that makes it clearer to people that they should care about it.

No, the equivalent is you walking into a store to buy DVDs, and the store manager keeping a record of what sells well, and what you show interest in, etc. to drive decisions about what to stock next.

Interestingly this example led to one of America's few, narrowly-focused privacy laws: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act

> It makes any "video tape service provider" that discloses rental [or sale] information outside the ordinary course of business liable for up to $2500 in actual damages.

It's crazy, we understand that libraries should be barred from handing over our book checkout histories but somehow we allow corporations to do that and much more.

... and then cross-referencing your purchase with everything else you ever purchased. And also every article you ever read. And then selling that information to others.

... and claiming it's not a privacy violation because they don't let the others search for martingoodson, they just offer selection criteria including your age, gender, geographical location, inferred income, inferred religion, inferred skin color, and of course interests.

Can you show me an example of where and how Google or Facebook "sells your information?" i.e. allows others to view that information?

That analogy only works if its only the store manager keeping the records. Whats really happening is the store manager is outsouring his record keeping to a 3rd party who has full access to the data from his store and data from millions of other stores too.

You mean like any big chain or conglomerate or Visa/MasterCard? Consulting/analytics isn't anything new for retail either.

- the user didn't leave his home - he has an 'expectation of privacy' because the tracking is covert - he can't go to a different 'store'... the same covert tracking is in all of them pooling the information

No, the equivalent is you walking into a store to buy DVDs, and the store manager of a nearby store keeping a record of what sells well, and what you show interest in, etc. to drive decisions about what to stock next.