The government has all of your personal information. The IRS, DMV, USPS, you name it; they've all got everything about you. All SORTS of big companies have your info, too. Have you ever had someone come to your house? Cable installation, phone line, furniture delivery? You're in a customer database. A database that has probably been sold to a bunch of partner companies. And what about your bank? Or your credit card company? Corporations have access to your finances, the type and location of your purchases, etc.

There's just no way to be truly "private" these days. Anyone who wants to find your personal information can almost certainly do so, it's just a matter of how much effort it would require.

And THAT'S where you can actually take a bit of action. There are steps that can be taken to make your information harder to access. It's important, though, to weigh the benefit of these steps against the risk you would otherwise be assuming. It doesn't make sense to accept extreme hardship and/or inconvenience to protect against unlikely issues.

Anyway, all I'm trying to get at is that you can't be private these days, and it doesn't make sense to try too hard. With that said, I'll answer your survey.



In theory, yes. However, I don't believe that privacy for privacy's sake makes sense.



Minimally so. I don't share very much, but that's primarily because I find little reason to do so, rather than because I'm worried about privacy issues.



I think it's valid for oneself, and terrible to impose on someone else. In other words, if you're ok with someone looking at your personal stuff, that's your decision, and there's nothing wrong with that. To say "why can't I look at your stuff if you have nothing to hide," though, is disgusting.



Depends on what information. I suppose that someone posing as you could commit illegal acts and get you in hot water. The chance of this happening is vanishingly low, however, and the chance that it couldn't be cleared up once it happened is even lower.



Just the usual ways boring, consumer ways.



Not much. I suppose there might be an uptake in identity theft if the company sold off all the emails, and people had stored highly personal info (SSNs, etc) in there. That's usually fairly easy to clear up, though (if a hassle). Honestly, I would almost worry LESS if a Chinese company owned Google. The only small worry I have about Google is that some US authority might one day look through my stuff and make improper conclusions about me participating in illegal activities of some kind. If the Chinese had it though, meh, I'm not subject to Chinese law.

I'm sure there are things I haven't considered, and I'd definitely do some research if such a sale actually happened, but I don't think it would be a big deal.



No. For one thing, it wouldn't work. Encrypting one's data is absurdly easy. It might catch the occasional small town pervert, but the big players would change tactics in a heartbeat and continue business as usual.



See above. I don't think it would do enough good to justify the time and cost.



It keeps me awake at night.

No, certainly not. The information shared online that gets people in trouble is information they shouldn't have shared ANYWHERE. It's not really the internet's "fault."