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

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.

<![CDATA[ <article> <p>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.</p><h2 id="the-need-for-privacy">The need for privacy</h2><p>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.</p><div class="fancy-box"><div class="fancy_box-title">Quote of the day</div><div class="fancy_box_body"><p class="fancy-box__body-text">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. <a data-analytics-id="inline-link" href="https://www.techradar.com/tag/qotd">Read the full series here</a>.</p></div></div><p>There's no single official source of truth on the exact words he uttered, but <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2013/11/20/5125922/vint-cerf-google-internet-evangelist-says-privacy-may-be-anomaly" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><em>The Verge</em></a><em> </em>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.</p><p>The comments may be perceived as a means of undermining what's become an aggressive desire for privacy, especially in the wake of <a href="https://www.techradar.com/pro/quote-of-the-day-by-nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-on-the-nothing-to-hide-argument-no-different-than-saying-you-dont-care-about-free-speech-because-you-have-nothing-to-say" target="_blank">revelations on government surveillance</a> and a reliance on using personal data in the <a href="https://www.techradar.com/pro/if-you-have-something-that-you-dont-want-anyone-to-know-maybe-you-shouldnt-be-doing-it-in-the-first-place-quote-of-the-day-by-ex-google-ceo-eric-schmidt" target="_blank">business models of companies like Google</a>. But Cerf cast his eye much further and wider, cutting to human nature itself.</p><h2 id="human-nature">Human nature</h2><p>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. </p><p>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.</p><p>Since the Industrial Revolution, there's been a massive growth in much larger population centres like cities, with the global population also massively exploding. </p><p>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.</p><div style="min-height: 250px;"> <div class="kwizly-quiz kwizly-OdvAJe"></div> </div> <script src="https://kwizly.com/embed/OdvAJe.js" async></script> </article> ]]>