First my apologies for being so flippant when it comes to privacy.

Although I'm not quite sure if we are dealing with a basic human right or just a mechanism to avoid embarrassment, immunity from the judgment of others.

For some the bottom line is always the Constitution, which contains no express right to privacy. ( For myself the penultimate line is  always the Constitution knowing full well that there is always a notion to trump it. )

I remember going to CES a few year back and thinking, "wow, there sure are a lot of TVs here". I mean, how much more can you innovate on televisions? Well, with this article in mind I have realized that you can do a whole lot in regards to sending user data back to the source. Google is already good at this, is there any wonder why they developed a Google TV in the first place?

As the world goes digital/Electronics, out went our privacy. It's just unthinkable that once should expect any sort of privay in a digital world. Big Brother can watch you, your wife can watch you and so to does your husband. It seems anybody that wants to get up close and personal to you can do so very cheaply. This is because technology has make it virtually possible and to some extent almost has make it easy to spy on people. 

My belief is that oncethese tools are available, the temptation to use them becomes even greater. The worrying part in all of this is whether our laws are keeping pace with the technology. From all indications, it does not appear to be the case and as a result we are now left at the mercy of ruthless executives like the one you encountered who are bent on using any available tech tool to invade our privacy.

If that's how you define privacy, a follow upquestion will be 'Do we still have that control of what information about us to disclose'?

"Seem quite over the top to me but there is no choice in the matter if you dont pay cash up front for the car."

I have the same issue a couple of years ago and I declined the offer. I think there are more civil ways to ensure that consumers honor their credit committment without having a GPS tracking your every moment. But as you rightly stated, in a credit fuel world like the one we are living in now, our choices are getting very limited. 

The question is one of balance and things are going too far now. For instance my hubby bought a new car and we were informed by the dealer that the finance company insists a GPS chip is on the car tracked at all times in case we miss a payment in the mean time they know exactly where we are and when whenever the car is in use but we are not permitted to have access to this data. Seem quite over the top to me but there is no choice in the matter if you dont pay cash up front for the car.

Privacy isn't so much about keeping secrets as it is about keeping control of what information is disclosed, how, where, and to whom. 

Not only is tagging employees a gross privacy violation, it's also bad business. At that point, you're not measuring productivity, you're just measuring who's showing up. The guy who sits at his desk eight hours watching cat videos on YouTube looks more productive than the guy who spends four hours actually working. 

You're right, Brian, that whenever people talk about individual items -- like the black boxes in cars or tracking of voting information (blows my mind!) -- there's some outrage, at least among a portion of society. And I don't know what we can do, either, because you really cannot unring a bell or 'disappear' mountains of data. 

It also appears to me (although this is totally unscientific) that this 'outrage' is decreasing as people get desensitized. 

It's certainly getting much harder to make growin-up mistakes in private.