{"id":261761,"date":"2026-06-01T19:40:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T23:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/01\/privacy-isnt-dead-its-just-that-tech-companies-have-made-it-inconvenient-sandra-matz-inforrms-blog\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T05:40:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T09:40:33","slug":"privacy-isnt-dead-its-just-that-tech-companies-have-made-it-inconvenient-sandra-matz-inforrms-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/01\/privacy-isnt-dead-its-just-that-tech-companies-have-made-it-inconvenient-sandra-matz-inforrms-blog\/","title":{"rendered":"Privacy isn\u2019t dead: it\u2019s just that tech companies have made it inconvenient \u2013 Sandra Matz \u2013 Inforrm’s Blog"},"content":{"rendered":"

Privacy isn\u2019t dead: it\u2019s just that tech companies have made it inconvenient \u2013 Sandra Matz \u2013 Inforrm’s Blog<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/inforrm.org\/2026\/06\/02\/privacy-isnt-dead-its-just-that-tech-companies-have-made-it-inconvenient-sandra-matz\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-06-01 19:40:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: inforrm.org<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cYou have zero privacy \u2026 Get over it,\u201d Scott McNealy, then CEO of Sun Microsystems, declared in 1999.\u00a0 What might have sounded like a bold claim at the turn of the millennium has turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy in today\u2019s era of big data and artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

Computer algorithms \u2013 step-by-step instructions \u2013 can connect the digital breadcrumbs of your existence, including Google searches, browsing histories, social media posts, credit card records and GPS locations to paint an astonishingly accurate picture of your preferences, routines and inner mental life.<\/p>\n

These profiles often describe people better than their closest friends and family might. Yours may even tell you something you don\u2019t know about yourself.<\/p>\n

And as McNealy said nearly three decades ago, many people seem to have given up on the idea of ever reclaiming their privacy. When was the last time you carefully read the terms and conditions of the products you\u2019re using?<\/p>\n

Why do so many people do so little to protect their privacy online? I\u2019m a computational social scientist with a background in psychology and computer science and author of \u201cMindmasters: The Data-Driven Science of Predicting and Changing Human Behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

In talking to my students as a business professor at Columbia University and giving public talks around the world over the past decade, I have come to realize that people often substitute the question of whether they care about their privacy with two simpler and misleading ones: Is sharing my data worth it? And am I worried about my data being out there?<\/p>\n

These questions act as mental shortcuts. They seem reasonable, but can mask your true feelings and lead you to decisions that don\u2019t serve your long-term interests.<\/p>\n

The \u2018it\u2019s worth it\u2019 fallacy<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I ask people whether they care about their online privacy, they often respond by listing the benefits they get from sharing their personal data: Google Maps navigation, Netflix recommendations,…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Privacy isn\u2019t dead: it\u2019s just that tech companies have made it inconvenient \u2013 Sandra Matz…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":261762,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/736592\/original\/file-20260518-58-h8vnrj.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-261761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261761"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261761"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":261763,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261761\/revisions\/261763"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}