Quote of the day by ex-Google evangelist Vint Cerf: 'Privacy may actually be an anomaly' putting our rights into perspective

Date:
Sun, 26 Jul 2026 22:00:00 +0000

Description:
Technology companies and governments have long undermined our desire for privacy, but is this more of a modern fad?

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter One of the architects of the modern internet, Vint Cerf, went on to become Google 's chief internet evangelist from October 2005 through to July 2026, making several key predictions on the technologies he played a role in crafting. But, casting
his eye back, he also once made a staggering admission about his view on privacy. "Privacy may actually be an anomaly. Privacy is something which has emerged out of the urban boom coming from the industrial revolution... It
will be increasingly difficult for us to achieve privacy. Our social behavior is quite damaging to privacy. Technology has outraced our social intellect." Vint Cerf, November 2013 The need for privacy Cerf was speaking during a
media Q&A session at a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) workshop on the
Internet of Things (IoT) when he made these off-the-cuff remarks. Quote of
the day This article is part of TechRadar Pro's QOTD project to provide an insight into the minds of the brightest and most recognized figures in the technology industry today and in years gone by. Read the full series here . There's no single official source of truth on the exact words he uttered, but The Verge reconstructed his words as best they could, with Cerf essentially highlighting that throughout the span of human existence, our desire for privacy is, relatively, a modern blip. Latest Videos From TechRadar Watch
full video here:

The comments may be perceived as a means of undermining what's become an aggressive desire for privacy, especially in the wake of revelations on government surveillance and a reliance on using personal data in the business models of companies like Google . But Cerf cast his eye much further and wider, cutting to human nature itself. Human nature Cerf saw people as being naturally inclined to living in much smaller communities, like villages, in which only a few thousand people would ever interact. You may like Quote of the day by Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy: "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it" "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place" quote of the day by Eric Schmidt Quote of the day by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg: Privacy is no longer a social norm declaring the erosion of social boundaries

There, he said, everybody would know what everybody else was doing, and the postmaster would know who everyone was getting their mail from, as he put it.

Since the Industrial Revolution, there's been a massive growth in much larger population centres like cities, with the global population also massively exploding. Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter Sign up to the
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But there's also an argument to make that times move on, and our nature has shifted to adapt to the world we know, not the world in which our ancestors inhabited. By that nature, our need for privacy is still innate, with big
tech companies like Google seeking to undermine this by exploiting our personal data for private gain.



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/pro/quote-of-the-day-by-ex-google-evangelist-vint-ce rf-privacy-may-actually-be-an-anomaly-putting-our-rights-into-perspective


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