Here are a few of my thoughts, in no particular order ...

Privacy is a person's right to select which portions of or all of his or her personal information or attributes that can be shared with others.

On a practical level, an ability to retain one's privacy is inversely proportional to one's celebrity. A hermit who lives way back in the mountains has much privacy (and probably likes it that way). Conversely, Paris Hilton has very little privacy (and probably likes it that way).

A desire for privacy is why we close the door when we go to the bathroom, why we choose not to post our social security numbers on our blogs, why we sometimes turn off our cell phones and computers. We aren't being antisocial; we simply don't want to share parts of our lives and time with others. And that's ok.

That's a start. I'll be back with more.

Good luck!

Mark

Posted by Mark Dixon on January 19, 2007 at 12:11 AM CST #

To me, privacy is the freedom to be who you want to be in a place you can call your own.

Posted by Lite M Finocchiaro on January 19, 2007 at 04:54 PM CST #

Privacy in it's simplist form is being left alone. This of course means different things in different contexts, here are a few: When I was a kid, it meant: "Stay out of my room" and "don't read my diary" As any parent can attest, a few minutes of solitude will go a long way. As an internet user, being left alone means not keeping track of who I am (especially SSN CC #'s, etc.) or what I am doing online.

Posted by Derrick on January 22, 2007 at 06:48 PM CST #

To me privacy doesn't mean being left alone. It means that if I'm being watched, I know it. And if people have access to information about me, I have the opportunity to view the info, edit it and delete parts of it if I want. In today's information society I know I'm exposed but I want to have some control over what's exposed. As to how that plays out in society today, I agree with Scott when he says, "You have no privacy. Get over it."

Posted by melanie gao on April 08, 2007 at 09:41 PM CDT #

I think to me , privacy means when you have your own private life. Take a look at those famous celebrities and or famous singers and more popular people , they don't have their own private life cause anything that happen to them either good or bad will printed out in the magazine or any newpapers article...they don't get to live their life without any one knowing about it and involving themselves...

Posted by elisabeth on March 01, 2009 at 09:27 AM CST #

privacy should be a right not something that is given to you it should be something of yours and to me when someone invades that its hurtful and could affect alot of people and somepeople dnt get that.

Posted by Latyya on October 15, 2009 at 10:38 AM CDT #

i did not help

Posted by nancy on November 23, 2009 at 11:31 AM CST #