You probably know me....

I am stealing this blog post from The Shifted Librarian because I think it deserves posting again. It is about privacy and the world we currently live in. She thought about who out there has information about her and came up with a pretty impressive list of companies that probably know a whole lot. These are the companies that know the most about her (taken from her blog):
* Cell carrier/cellphone maker — they know my loca­tion at any given time, plus all of the data that goes through my phone (and I don’t have a land­line, so every­thing goes through my cell)
* Cable com­pany = they know what I watch on TV and what I surf on the net
* Bank = they know most of the places where I spend my money
* Credit cards = they know a lot of places I spend my money
* LISHost — hosts my web­site and email, which would include a lot of receipts for online purchases
* Google = knows most of the things I search for and many things I read (via Google Reader); even though I don’t use Gmail, any email I send to Gmail users is in their archives
* Ama­zon = knows about a lot of things I pur­chase and read (includ­ing via my Kindle)
* Face­book = knows a lot about what I say about myself via sta­tus updates and who my friends are
* Friend­Feed (now owned by Face­book) = aggre­gates a lot about what I say about myself pub­licly online, plus which con­ver­sa­tions and peo­ple I watch on the site
* Net­flix = knows a lot about what I watch
* Foursquare = knows some about where I am/go
* Flickr = knows a lot about where I am/go, who my friends/contacts are, and what inter­ests me
* Twit­ter = knows my net­work and who I inter­act with the most
* Health care provider = I’m lucky that I’ve been rel­a­tively healthy, but my provider(s) know about any problems
* Deli­cious = knows a lot about sites I’ve vis­ited and want to remember
* Dopplr = knows my trips and some of my friends
* Ever­note = knows about some things I want to remem­ber, although I haven’t put much per­sonal infor­ma­tion there yet
* Illi­nois Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion (IDOT) = I don’t drive nearly as much as I used to any­more, but IDOT knows when I go on tollroads

Now if I think about who knows what about me...the list is very similar.
I love my privacy, but I also love technology and the ability to share things instantly with my group of friends and family. If I weigh out the options, technology wins.
I recently went on a weekend trip into a state park and had no internet and limited cell phone use. As soon as we crossed into a 3G area, I was looking for things to do on my phone just to use the technology. I had checked facebook and twitter and my e-mail and I was just surfing the web for the heck of it, just because I could. That's how much I love technology.
The first week in May (2-8) is the first annual Choose Privacy Week. I will probably be doing some talks at the library where I work about it. People don't realize what is out there, and being aware is the first and most important thing to do.
But for me, between technology and privacy...well, I'll just take my chances with the 3G network.