Is The Internet Expanding Privacy Expectations?

Is the Internet invading privacy, or expanding privacy? The conventional wisdom is that the Internet is eviscerating privacy. But in some ways a heightened focus on privacy in the digital era may be creating new and greater privacy expectations.

Consider the simple matter of lists of addressees and cc's on emails.

In the ancient days of postal mail, it was never a big deal if a sender revealed, on a letter, the other persons to whom he or she were sending the same letter, or to whom he or she was sending copies of that letter. Lots of letters show multiple addressees or multiple persons copied. That indeed explains the origin of the "cc" field, as a visible list of the persons to whom a "carbon copy" (another ancient term) was being sent.