A quick PUBLIC note about ‘privacy’

I have not read all of the posts on OD about the "privacy" furore and frankly, I don’t feel like reading them. I’ve seen this kind of thing erupt a thousand times, on a hundred different web-sites and I am just amused by it.

The plain fact is, nothing that you post on the internet is ever private. Okay? You’re using software which is housed on a server that is owned by a person. A server, is simply a computer system. You have a computer that you use to post your entries from. Nothing on that computer is off limits to you.

Same thing goes for the owner of the server where your diary is hosted. He can see everything, and he has the right to see everything, just the same as you have the right to see everything housed on your computer. 

The owner of the server offers space on his server to you as a service. At the same time, he has rules about how that service is used. Read them. They’re usually titled "Terms of Service" or "TOS" or something like that. Be sure of what you’re agreeing to, before you click the "I agree" button.

And seriously, if you want something you write to remain private, here’s the best way to do it.

Take a pen and a paper journal and write your thoughts in there and then put it in a cupboard with a key lock, and lock it.

Don’t think that anything you post on any internet server is ever private. Not even Email is private. It passes through servers, and those servers are controlled by people who can, and often do read your email. Why? Because they have a legal obligation to ensure their servers are not being used for illegal purposes. They also have the right to ask you to remove or change something they deem to be in violation of the terms of service you agreed to when you signed up.

Private is a paper diary that no one else can get to.

Internet diaries are not, no matter what the ‘status’ you select when you save them says, private.