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This page contains all of the posts and discussion on MemeStreams referencing the following web page: Intimate Shopping. You can find discussions on MemeStreams as you surf the web, even if you aren't a MemeStreams member, using the Threads Bookmarklet.

Intimate Shopping
by possibly noteworthy at 3:31 pm EST, Dec 23, 2007

The Beacon fiasco gives a good outline of what future conflicts over the Internet will look like. Whether a system is opt-in or opt-out has an enormous influence on how people use it. He who controls the “default option” — the way a program runs if you don’t modify it — writes the rules.

We used to live in a world where if someone secretly followed you from store to store, recording your purchases, it would be considered impolite and even weird. Today, such an option can be redefined as “default” behavior. The question is: Why would it be? The price in reputation for overturning this part of the social contract is bound to be prohibitively high.

For the owners of social-networking sites, it may be a price worth paying.

Well?


 
 
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