Rikki writes.

“Privacy” has become a media buzzword over the past few weeks.  The White House released its proposed “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights,” which basically argues that companies that collect personal data should be more transparent and that consumers have  a right to know when and how their personal data is being used.  Google announced that it’s adding a “do not track button” to its browser, Chrome, and rolled out a new Privacy Policy a couple of weeks ago.  All of these developments are being described as a victory for people concerned about how their personal data is being used by online giants like Google and Apple.

Who are these people, exactly — the people who are so concerned about how their data is being used? I realize that they do exist, and start organizations like this one, but I’ve never met someone who was genuinely worried about their online privacy, apart from wanting to keep their social security number and credit card information safe.  And a large portion of what these policies address isn’t financial information, it’s behavioral information: how we browse, sites we visit, items we buy, how we share with friends.

It appears that the everyday internet user isn’t troubled by a lack of privacy, given that they’re willing to share every detail of their life via social media.  We’re happy to share our physical location, via Foursquare and Facebook check-ins.  We’re thrilled to broadcast our personal interests and potential purchases with Pinterest.  We’re eager to tout our political views with Twitter and Huffington Post.  And are we reading the lengthy privacy policies of these social applications?  Probably not.

While marketers want to use our personal information to increase the efficiency of their ads, we’ll cough up that data if it means getting a deal.  Many restaurants, for example, give a discount if you check in with Foursquare or like their Facebook page.  If I can get a couple bucks off of a burrito, I really don’t care if California Tortilla knows that a twenty-eight year old white female that’s interested in feminist politics and  mid-century modern design prefers their vegetarian option.

But people do start to care when their personal data reveals things about them that they don’t want to admit.  You may convince yourself that you’re not addicted to celebrity gossip, but when marketers begin to leverage the amount of time you spend on perezehilton.com to send you targeted Us Weekly ads, instead of, say, ads for The Wall Street Journal, you have to admit that the data doesn’t lie.  Along the same lines, we really do want to keep certain elements of our lives private.  That’s why John Doe is happily checking in to the trendy downtown club, but failing to check in to the free clinic.

We want it both ways.  We want it to be socially acceptable to share intimate details of our lives with the world via social media because we love being voyeurs and crave public approval.  But, here’s the kicker, we want the mediums that we use to share — Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest — to be free.  Pay for Facebook?! Please!  But someone’s gotta pay for those brilliant engineers.  And advertisers’ currency of choice?  Your personal data.

The media has been abuzz today with coverage of Mitt Romney’s “latest gaffe,” in which he says that he’s not concerned about the very poor. Gingrich jumped all over this and immediately incorporated it into his campaign speeches.  Romney argues that this comment (made to Soledad O’Brien) was taken out of context, and he’s right. The entire sentence was, “I’m in this race because I care about Americans. I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich. They’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of America.” (Of course, the sentiment isn’t exactly noble, but it is a little more complicated than an outright abandonment of the poor.)

I’m not one to defend Conservatives, but taking comments out of context and using them to attack one’s opponent happens all the time, and we’ll continue to see it happen more and more as the election goes on (and the civility goes down).

Assaulting an opponent with their own out-of-context words is a flawed tactic, especially now that the average American, with YouTube, Facebook, and other online tools, can easily see the original utterance and judge for herself. For example, when I saw the CNN headline “Michelle Obama Insults Mitt Romney for his Singing Voice,” it didn’t rake me long to find the actual clip from Jay Leno.  During her interview Mrs. Obama makes a lighthearted joke about the republican front-runner, which is kind and completely appropriate and wow I love that lady.

The problem is that many people don’t take advantage of the tools available to them to sort through the garbage spewing from politicians’ mouths (and, of course, some people don’t have access to these tools — the “very poor” included). They take what candidates say at face value or rely on the media to relay the information. And the media, love them as I do, have their own agenda and reasons for taking things out of context. Soledad O’Brien, another lady I love, hit the jackpot with that sound bite.

Americans need to learn the art of dissecting rhetoric: listening to a politicians’ speech, identifying its main argument, and understanding how the speaker is trying to influence us through appeals to our emotions.  When we see a campaign ad that frames the economic recession in terms of how it’s affecting little Sally from Michigan (She’s white!  She has asthma!), we need to realize what’s happening. When we hear a candidate subtly interchange the words woman, wife, and mother, we need to think about what she’s implying.  When we hear a candidate quote his opponent, we need to do our own research to find out what he or she really said.  Unless we do so, we can’t make an educated decision.

In 2011 Americans spent $33.5 billion online.  That’s a 15% increase from 2010, according to comScore.  Any increase in spending, whether online or in stores, is a sign of an improving economy, which is surely something to celebrate.  But brick and mortar retailers aren’t thrilled.

Store owners complained in December that holiday shoppers are increasingly using retail stores to check out a product before going home to buy it online.  In other words, their retail stores are becoming showrooms for e-commerce giants like Amazon.

And this is exactly what Amazon wants.  In fact, before the holidays Amazon actually gave shoppers a discount if they went to a retail store and left without buying anything.  If a customer went to a store like Best Buy or Target, used the Amazon Price Check App to compare prices to product on Amazon, and then later purchased the Amazon product, they receive up to 15% off.

Retail stores argue that the shift to online shopping isn’t just bad for their balance sheet, but it’s bad for the community.  Drawing up nostalgic images of families heading downtown in their Sunday best, retailers, and many other people out there, believe that local retail stores are the foundations of the neighborhood.

Retail stores are certainly  a part of the local economy, but if they were replaced by, say, locally owned restaurants, gyms, dry cleaners, etc, would the community actually suffer?  Is shopping as a social enterprise (and I mean social as physically being with other people, not as in social media) a part of local culture that is worth protecting? And what would be the consequences if we didn’t protect it?

I’m a big proponent of supporting local business, and I’m also employed by an e-commerce company, so it’s an interesting question to me.  Does physical group buying (ie shopping with friends), strengthen a community, or does it simply reinforce materialism?  Does spending create a local culture, and does consuming with friends actually strengthen a relationship?

As buying becomes more solitary and, paradoxically, more social (and here I mean as in social media), we’ll have to decide whether physically shopping in a retail store is a cultural tradition that we’re willing to maintain.  And that will mean walking away from our laptops, despite the incentives of free shipping and no-question returns.