Nice piece, and well done for picking up on the Zuckerberg quote correctly.

A couple of points (well really you expected them right?).

Whilst it is fair to recognise that the current trend of “exhibitionism and voyeurism” online is driving a change in culture it is important to also recognise that cultural norms for privacy vary widely globally and have far wider scope than the whole FB debacle. For a little light reading have a quick look at Solove’s work “I’ve Got Nothing to Hide” and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy *http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565)

“Traditionally – and as such constitutionally in many countries of the world – privacy has been considered in terms of a personal or natural right, as well as a property right.”

Can you point me to any legislation or case law which helps to enshrine privacy in terms of a property right, please? As yet I have not seen anything, anywhere.

Property rights in Western Culture divide into Real & Personal (and arguably Intellectual although that’s often lumped with Personal).

As most modern privacy legislation deals with personal information (and it’s control) it is in my, and a number of other privacy prof’s, opinion that personal information is inalienable and therefore cannot be conferred property rights or title.

Indeed if you are from an identity background the philosophical argument is that whilst one may have control over personal information, one’s identity (which is an aggregate of all that info) is actually not owned by anyone rather created by the third party. But that’s an discussion for another day ;O)

As a final note – I’d have to agree with Zuckerberg in that within the FB userbase sharing has become the norm but still we are talking, what 350M / xB people. It’s still not “normal” in the grand scale of things.

Their decision to have privacy policies reflect social norms though is 100% the correct approach, always adapting and changing far faster than any prevailing legislation could ever hope to do so.

Take care

“… a strange symbiotic culture of exhibitionism and voyeurism, against the backdrop of overcoming the tyranny of distance and the ravages of time.”

This is very well put and echoes JG Ballard, who I think had a similar vision of our somewhat conflicted modern take on privacy.

“I’ve always believed that ultimately every home will be transformed into its own TV studio. We’ll all be simultaneously actor, director and screenwriter in our own, soap operas. People will start screening themselves. They will become their own TV programmmes.”

See http://www.jgballard.ca/interviews/jgb_id_mag_interview.html

And this now achieved via a combination of internet and mobile devices, as it turns out.