Trevor, You hit the nail on the head. All the responders in denial actually do make your case. The question how to change this situation? Pay for your stuff. I alway buy the paid version of apps, rather than the ad supported ones. I alway buy my music and pay for films. Don't I use free apps? Yes of course, however, only if that the only version available. Read the popup information before installing apps that require access to system resources like the address book. Initially WhatApp allowed the user to pick and choose the contacts you wanted to use WhatApp with. Later versions demanded access to the address book in order to grant you access to the app. That's when I deleted the program and paid for my SMS text messages. To concur with Trevor: nothing is 'really' free. So always question yourself: does a service or product has any real value for you? When it really does pay for it. You don't work for free. Do you? At least least not full time. So why expect others to work for free. Marlon Simons The Netherlands

I agree with you about Google. I willingly trade a little privacy for endless productivity tools and don't complain when they change it. Apple on the other hand is bringing in large profit margins for what you call "relatively inexpensive" tablets and making their employees work in horrendous atmospheres. They could easily cut into these profit margins and give their employees better living standards. And by better living standards I do not mean nets in order to prevent suicides. This is a world apart from one another and shouldn't be in the same article saying that it is the fault of the consumer. Business practices for each company is NOT the consumers responsibility it is the responsibility of the leaders of that company. It is the consumers responsibility to choose to whether once those practices are brought to light if that is something they are willing to endorse with their money.

Sorry dude but you are way off when you blame the customer and consumer for all this. The mentioned companies and others constantly push to gain a competitive advantage, more traction and higher sales and they leverage our natural lust for more and better things or services. Of course I want a Ferarri for the price of a Jetta and please deliver it this afternoon when I order it now... Would I give you my DNA sequence, my family tree and my grandmas shopping habits in return ... maybe. The real deal is that the one thing that silicon valley values is scale - at any cost. Only through scale can this industry return the cost for tech development, product craftsmanship and distribution. The fierce competition drives everything to the edges where companies see no other way to improve over their competition then to cross the lines in terms of privacy and manufacturing conditions. The trick is that most normal consumers don't know what deals they are agreeing to. For obvious reasons the companies want to keep any necessary disclosure as obscure and hard to understand as possible or do you really think as many people wild have signed up for gmail if it would say in big letters "we use your emails to build a consumer profile which we can leverage for more effective advertising and who knows what in the future - in return you'll get the email service for free" ? You can't blame the consumer unless the usually hidden consequences are as much in their face as the product offered. In the case of Path it would be no problem if it would have disclosed their address upload practice upon signup so the consumer can choose if they want to go ahead or drop it. Blaming the consumer who is deliberately kept in the dark is nonsense. Forcing. Ompanies to disclose their practices in a user friendly way is the right thing to do.

Trevor, Great article. Businesses give the customers what they want, and we (as a consumerbase) want it faster and cheaper. A lot people didn't think through the consequences of this because they were having too much damn fun searching Google 100 times a day or talking to their friends on Facebook. I don't have much need for privacy right now, but I think it's important to know where to go when we need it. That'd be a conversation worth having.

Yeah yeah, and Robert Johnson went to the crossroads and 'sold his soul to the devil'. It is now, as it was in Johnson's day, a question of what is expected, and who expects it. Johnson's people expected he would keep on playing religious music - when he wanted to play the blues. Sure we expect Google to carry on providing services for free, but not at any price, and I haven't noticed them not making money from all those ads - have you? If you really want to play games with the relationship between big companies and consumers, you have to also examine the relationship between, big companies, big governments and national security agencies. Who REALLY benefits from our alleged greed and stupidity in checking those EUAs? Big companies have a choice. They can go so far and no further, protecting (instead of profiting from) personal information - if they choose to... if they value their relationship with their users/customers/consumers more than the relationships they have with governments and security agencies. You only have to look at Jerry Yang's unforgivable behaviour in China to understand what I'm talking about here. Okay, so Google played that one slightly differently, though not much - and they could clearly afford to. But more recently Google has been playing a very different game, that involves trying to beat Apple and Microsoft... and Facebook, whilst failing to understand Apple (no-one really does), failing to grasp why Facebook works, and ultimately, in the process, becoming more and more like Microsoft - which if you study it carefully is very much like a Cali drug cartel. How is any of that MY fault? I don't even own Google stock! But hey, it's Saturday, or time for Trevor Gilbert to issue his own contribution to the revenue generating process. Be careful though. On ZDNet, some people consciously and consistently refuse to respond to certain contributors charged with being troll baiters.

This was one of the worst articles I've see on this subject. Google is constantly pushing the limits and crossing the line. There is a way to make the right decision.

Back when I was in the tailoring business, our company made some of the best suits in the world. Savile Row. Hand-made by English master tailors. Top, top, top drawer stuff. But they REALLY WERE some of the best suits in the world. Our clients were Royalty and celebrities and Fortune 500 CEOs. The only trouble was, yeah, the cost $4-5 thousand a pop. After a bit, thanks to social media, we were able to reach out to the Silicon Valley crowd, the first English tailoring firm to really do so. And business was brisk. Of course, once the geeks saw what was happening, they started gaving us a lot of opinions... More than once, we were told, "If you REALLY had your act together, not only would they be the best suits in the world, they'd also be the cheapest!" Hmmmm... By that logic, would you ask the top software dude for Apple or Facebook to work for minimum wage? Of course not. The moral of the story: Never confuse the blog comment of somebody with no skin in the game, with reality. Geek or no-geek. Thanks for the cartoon gig, Trev, I had fun :) hugh@gapingvoid

Or like som articles in Pandodaily. Sometimes it is pretty obvious why the Pando site is free to access. Sorry mate - the logic in this article simply stink. Yes I know you in "the old web" is under attack but that doesnt justify the kind of user-abuse you are defending. And jumping on Apple based on articles by "that" writer ... hmmm. How about it Mr. Gilbert - why not try some real journalistic work and visit Foxconn and tell us what is really going on there? Rather than just participating a the new "closed"campaign like some stogee.

Ok, it's all our fault for loving the shiny. How do we change this?

Trevor Gilbert this is one of the best articles I have ever read. We the users also never realize how much we are affecting people on the other side of the world. Like here in the case of Apple's manufacturing plant in China.