Comments on: What Are People Willing to Pay for Privacy?

By: beri

beri — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:22:20 +0000

One of the costs of clearances is that because of the time lag to obtain a clearance, the quality of employees goes down, as few people will wait two years for a clearance so they can take the job. So realistically, the employer only gets to hire people who already have clearances, like ex-military. (That is not to suggest that ex-military are stupid, only that the employer has very limited options).

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 19:33:13 +0000

Nick, but gmail still reads your email, they just don’t use it for advertising.

By: NIck Owen

NIck Owen — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:19:23 +0000

What about the cost of ad-free webmail? $20 for a domain + $50 for a google apps account.

By: Marco

Marco — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:33:47 +0000

I’m not convinced that this could be a good measure of the value of privacy. I don’t think that the clearance process is perceived as privacy-related, although it actually is, indeed. I suspect that many other factors (e.g., the position, salary, career, etc.) dominate privacy concerns, therefore you’re not going to identify privacy-violation-adverse or -neutral or -seeker people and their relative valuation of privacy. I guess you’re most likely identify those looking for governmental or sensitive positions that are willing to accept the burden of the clearance process to get the job, regardless of privacy issues.

By: Tamzen

Tamzen — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:49:18 +0000

Also very few section of the government share clearances even though they are supposed to. If you have a DOD one it may not be acceptable at the FBI etc. So you have to wait all over again for another clearance to ask your friends annoying questions.

By: Nikita

Nikita — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:44:29 +0000

I think there are costs associated with maintaining clearance; I don’t really know the details, but I think you might have to report contacts with foreigners, foreign travel, etc.