One of the most ridiculous arguments about privacy is the oft-stated “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” Irreal has many articles debunking this notion—here’s a list—but it seems the argument is evergreen.
Kev Quirk has (yet another) post laying waste to this completely bogus idea. His post, Privacy vs “I have nothing to hide”, takes a critical look at this outrageous argument. If you’ve followed the issue, nothing in Quirk’s article will be surprising but he does point out the reason that no one reads those terms of service that companies use to excuse their behavior. For example, the Paypal terms of service of is longer (in words) than Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Likewise, the Appletunes terms of service are longer than Macbeth. No one, no one, is going to read through all that but the companies will cite your click through as evidence that you’re fine with their spying on you.
As I’ve said before, if you hear someone raise this argument, walk away. The person advancing it either doesn’t know what they’re talking about or they’re trying to run a scam on you. In either case, ignore them. We all, whether we have something to hide or not, are entitled to our privacy and should tell those who say otherwise to go pound sound.