Communication Ethics book part for A Social/Personal Footnote . (This is an automatically generated summary to avoid having huge posts on this page. Click through to read this post.)

It is undeniable that there are social and personal aspects to what sort of privacy is desirable. Many of these aspects are unimportant, and can be determined by the society as they see fit. Whether or not you keep your blinds open on a first-floor apartment is a personal, ethically neutral decision.

The preceding analysis also gives us a method for determining whether or not an issue is such a purely personal or social decision, or a decision potentially containing ethical concerns. If the information gathered fits into the above analysis, then there is at least the potential for ethical issues to emerge. If the analysis makes no sense for the particular issue, then it can be determined by the society or person (as appropriate) with no ethical issues to worry about. Many mundane daily privacy issues are of this nature, but it is also a mistake to then assume that all privacy issues are of this nature, which I've also seen.