The End of Privacy

First Line:

Before breakfast, a businesswoman signs on to the Internet, checks her e-mail, and orders flowers. Even before she has signed off, her on-line movements have left a trail of data that has been added to her profile, including the fact that the recipient of the flowers is a thirty-two-year-old man who lives in the next suburb.

Description:

Most people have no idea that their private lives are public information. In the face of sophisticated and aggressive computer technology and marketing databases, state and federal "wars" against crime and terrorism, and an increasingly intrusive media, privacy has come to be violated in the most damaging, and the most disturbing ways.

In The End of Privacy, Charles Sykes illustrates how pervasive is the threat to privacy in America, reveals what has been lost and, finally, suggests measures to begin recovering it.