I think this is the perfect example of why I don’t think that “opt-out” (as opposed to opt-in) is *ever* an acceptable policy except in extreme cases.
Perhaps my ears were too finely-tuned by years of education at a liberal college campus. I may be alone; the majority of opinions formed in the last two days seem to agree that people, especially women, must be educated about the privacy implications of Facebook.
There is a discussion to be had about the default privacy settings of Facebook. But when I hear people proclaim the importance of educating these presumably ignorant young women about the dangers of Facebook, it is just a little too close to comfort to those seeking to educate women about the dangers of hemlines that end above the knee.
“You can always opt-out…” No. Please. No. Wait — I’ve reconsidered. That’s fine. Just tell me when you want me to stop hitting you.
Source: Creating Victims And Then Blaming Them | TechCrunch
I think this is how we should feel we have been treated every time some company buys your email address and sends you spam with an option to unsubscribe, every time a service substantially changes its policies and reminds you that if you disapprove then you can always stop using their service (which, given the ubiquity and monopoly of many online services, is near-complete BS and they know it).
That said, if a technology is created, a customer explicitly opts in to using it without bothering to learn about it (even if the information is hard to come by or requires substantial time to learn and education and mental capacity to understand?), and that customer is subsequently harmed by the technology, then is anyone to blame/at fault? If so, who {inventor/developer/manufacturer, retailer/seller, customer, society} is it and how much culpability and responsibility do they bear? Why?