It has been a while since I wanted to write about this subject. At many presentations that I gave during these last 2 years, I used the expression in the title in order to try to raise more awareness about why we should take care of our privacy (and maybe everyone's). But what does it really mean?

First of all, this article is not a copy of Benjamin Mako's Google Has Most of My Email Because It Has All of Yours. And I would also like to take this opportunity to recommend this great article; it provides many insights that some people do not even realize.

But back to the point: privacy is a collective good, and we should preserve it. The explanation of why I am calling privacy something “collective” is simple, and if you read Ben's article you probably know it by now: whenever I send an e-mail to someone who uses Gmail, Google will have a copy of it, even if I don't have a Google account. What does it mean? It means that I pay my own server in order to run my own e-mail infrastructure and not have my privacy disrespected, but in the end of the day the majority of my efforts are useless. Which boils down to something that may be hard to read, but is true: you are not respecting my privacy. Your displicence with your privacy is forcing me, who needs to communicate with you, to give up my privacy as well, even if for a small portion of time. But it's not only about e-mail...

Another common example is Facebook. I don't have an account there, and don't plan to have one, despite the pressure coming from the society sometimes. However, when you take a picture of me and post it there, or when you mention something about me on your Facebook, you are also disrespecting my privacy. If I don't have Facebook, it is because I do not want to become a product for them and have my personal data sold to advertisement companies, nor have it shared with the NSA. You, on the other hand, do not care about this, and post things about me and other people without their permission. This is wrong, and you are disrespecting my privacy.

I chose to use this argument because oftentimes people are not concerned about their privacy, and think that “if I have nothing to hide, then I don't need privacy”. I won't even begin discussing this absurd, because that is not the point of this article. Instead, I noticed that sometimes people pay more attention if you say that they are disrespecting someone else's right. Maybe I am wrong, but I still think it is worth trying to open everyone's eyes for something that seems to have been forgotten by most.

People talk about themselves all the time. Directly or indirectly, they usually have the intention to promote their views, opinions, or increase their self-esteem. I'm wondering now if I'm too radical when I say that I do bother about this behavior...

Sometimes I can't stand being close to someone who is a narcissist. However, what really pisses me off is talking to someone who pretends not to be a narcissist! This is absurdly annoying. They frequently talk about themselves, mentioning their freaking achievements, secretly waiting for other people to admire them, but they also like to say that they are not so good as they wanted, or that they should give more value to what they do, and so on...

Oh, man. Really? Can't you just stop appraising yourself externally, and start doing this internally, which is by far the most important thing to do? Can't you just be a nice guy/girl and stop talking about yourself like you were in a freaking presentation?

On the other hand, I understand that this kind of people probably have some serious internal issues (who doesn't, huh?), and they probably want everyone to pay attention to them as much as possible. We've got to be patient with them, understand their problem, and maybe try to help (how??). But sometimes it's just too hard to do that.

New year's resolution? Nah, I don't think so...