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Is privacy the new luxury? A lot of platforms and websites now offer paid tiers to opt out of ads and cookies. Vogue Business reports and “opportunity” for luxury brands to use privacy as a unique selling point. Privacy seems to be changing from a right to a….luxury product. And just like most luxury goods, not everyone can afford it
Transcript
Is privacy becoming a luxury good? Yesterday I was reading an article in The Guardian when I was met with a choice. Accept all or pay. It might be easy to overlook these little paywall constructions. You click accept to get to the article faster and maybe you tell worse, well, I don't really care because I've got nothing to hide. But the thing is privacy has never really been about whether you have a secret. Privacy is about power. Whoever has data on you has power over you. Daniel Solove made this argument in I've got nothing to hide and other misunderstandings of privacy. He argues that privacy is not about secrecy, but rather a structural issue on how information is collected, processed, and then used to shape your life. So maybe you don't have a secret, but scattered data points like your location and your search history can be combined into patterns for predicting future behavior, especially now with the help of increasingly intelligent AI. Meanwhile, in fashion and retail, Vogue business wrote an article about the growing demand of privacy, where they talked about how privacy can be used as a unique selling point for luxury brands. We won't sell you becomes a way to signal seriousness and respect. Privacy seems to be changing from a right to a luxury product. And like most luxury good, not everyone can afford them.