The point of most legislation is that people can't always protect themselves. Whether it's from other people, or from large organisations with great power, such as international corporations or the government. Strict privacy laws in more leftist places outside the US protect people from this sort of thing.
The fact is, people don't actually know with whom they're sharing the personal information. They think it's just their friends who can see their status updates / employer / friend network / political affiliation / sexuality. If the CIA called them up and asked them completely straightforwardly to volunteer that information for a national database I'm sure most would immediately refuse outright.
That's not even the main impact. Think about all of the people accessing Wikipedia every day - students, teachers, randoms - who don't read or watch the news. Ever.
All of these people who will probably never hear about SOPA, even if it's passed, will suddenly realise that their First Amendment rights are under threat and will hopefully be incredibly, incredibly angry.
This is amazing in terms of ease-of-use. However, the privacy implications are a bit worrying...
I don't really want to rubbish this, I hate the naysayers when something disruptive comes around (note that Japan rolled out pay-by-cellphone on their subway systems something like 10 years ago) but...
"She saw my name and photo on her iPad, tapped it, and I was done. A receipt was sent to my phone."
So all employees at stores using Card Case can see the name, identity and photo of every single person using card case within a 100 foot radius of the store. Completely regardless of whether they want to buy something or enter the store. What if you don't want random stores to know when you walk past? What if your abusive ex-husband is working at a store and sees your name come up on the list.. etc.
Additionally, if you use the app, Square knows exactly where you are at all times. I'm not at all comfortable with that. Apple had a massive scandal when it was revealed that it's technically possible to retrieve location history from iOS. This is legit human tracking - police and three letter agencies everywhere are probably throwing parties right now.
HN was up in arms when retail giant Westfield was tracking number plates entering their car park. Just number plates.
You saw the 100 foot radius bit, but ignore the sentence before. It's an opt-in solution -- If you don't want it, don't opt in.
First, you need to turn on auto-payments for each individual store where you’d like to use it—it’s impossible to tell Card Case to turn on auto-payments for every store in San Francisco.
Additionally, if you use the app, Square knows exactly where you are at all times.
That's absolutely not true, at least not on iOS. As mentioned in the article, Square is using the iOS geofencing APIs to wake the app when you enter a favorite area. The app isn't running in the background all the time.
Also, as mentioned in the article, you can turn this feature off and manually toggle the tab.
the privacy issues are negated by it being totally opt in. the other examples in your post are silent, unauthorized tracking. obviously there are privacy concerns with a system like this, but if that is something that worries you, you can control it.
I understand the privacy concerns, but this isn't a secret agent movie. I'm reminded of that scene from Jurassic Park..
Nedry: Ooh! Dodgson!
he sits down
Dodgson: You shouldn't use my name.
Nedry: (loudly) Dodgson! Dodgson! We have Dodgson here! Nedry: Nobody cares. Nice hat. Trying to look like a secret agent?
yes. so if you like that privacy, don't this system. some people don't mind telling the people at their coffee shop what their name is, and they can use this.
