It is commonly assumed by many in the digital age that privacy is one of several moral ideas that has become impossible to sustain, because of the transparent and porous characteristics of our communications technologies. As a result, perhaps, many have come to believe that privacy  is no longer a necessary part of our individual or collective well-being. 

Sure, there are many privacy advocates out there fighting to keep governments, corporations, marketers, families, friends, enemies and strangers from collecting, storing, exploiting, profiting and mining information that most people don't want circulating in the known world, among them: their medical and genetic stories, their sex lives, their DUIs, their grades at school and at work and their checkbook balances. But it seems just as sure,  these privacy special forces are fighting a futile cause, and that soon we will begin to regard them, fondly, as living the gesture life.   

So, give us a gesture. Or more than that. Tell us about privacy in your world.  Is it no longer a necessary part of what we might think is the good life? The life well-lived and all that? 

A few people think that it is not so much privacy that is vital to people living in a digital age. Instead, what is most vital to well-being  is to be able to control how you come across to others, how you present yourself and brand yourself. And equally important, who gets to know about you. This, for example, is what social-network expert danah boyd (yes, like the poet, e.e.cummings, she presents herself in lowercase), has said. 

On this site, we have been very intrigued about the various ways in which famous artists, such as musicians and actors, control their own images. Mostly,  we have wondered why artists, who have done morally despicable actions, such as wife-killing, get off the moral hook... and why then it's the beauty and virtue of their work that makes them morally exceptional.

What if everyone, and not just celebrities (whose efforts are not always successful),  gained complete control over the way they present themselves? What would the consequences be?

Would this create a new kind of privacy? One where privacy would not be regarded as good for your well-being, but actually as bad for you?