Scott McNeely on internet privacy: "Get Over It" 25 years ago

Wired article from January 25, 1999 https://www.wired.com/1999/01/sun-on-privacy-get-over-it/

TechXplore article from December 19, 2023 https://techxplore.com/news/2023-12-meta-european-users-ads-privacy.html

Essentially there is no privacy on the internet and there should be no expectation of privacy for consumers on the internet. There is no way to guarantee privacy on the internet even through encryption because the unencrypted data is available to those social sites and consumer sites who are encrypting the data. You can have secure connections though VPNs but within the VPN the data is available to whoever is providing the VPN. It is possible to secure communication by encrypting at both ends of the communication channel but there is no way to secure data that has to reside on some hardware somewhere. Things haven't changed since Scott McNeely made his comment 25 years ago.