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Paying For Privacy

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Buying back your own privacy. The high cost of keeping your personal information personal.

Blackberry mobile phones (AP)
(AP)

For most people, every five minute stroll on the web, the Internet, is a five-minute undressing. Websites snatching, saving, selling information on every click you make, every bit of personal data they can grab.

Web companies say it’s in the interest of consumer convenience and personalization. Privacy advocates say it’s out of control.

Back in the day, we presumed privacy until we saw in “invaded”. Today, many people presume a kind of nakedness on the web. These days you can have to pay to buy your own privacy back.

This hour On Point: the new frontiers of privacy.
- Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Nick Bilton, technology reporter and the lead writer for the Bits blog on NYTimes.com.  He is author of "I Live in the Future & Here's How It Works."

Esther Dyson, angel investor in internet startups, regular commentator on emerging digital technology and the former chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Latanya Sweeney, visiting professor at Harvard University’s Center for Research on Computation and Society. She is also the founder and director of the Data Privacy Lab, which seeks to shape the evolving relationship between technology and the right to privacy.

Michael Fertik, CEO of Reputation.com and author of "Wild West 2.0."

This program aired on April 6, 2011.

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