The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Southampton in England announced on November 2 that they would jointly start a new branch of science. Scientific American: A Science of the Web Begins

The phrase was "basic social values of trustworthiness and privacy". This means privacy of the individual, and it is "permissive" in that an individual need not avail himself of privacy. There's no conflict here. "Trustworthiness", however, is something else. Obviously, as a culture, we would like the information on the web to be "reliable" in some way, and that includes not libeling others, not violating other social norms and laws. Personal vaues that would go against these would violate a basic principle.

"My freedoms end where your rights begin."

What personal values would go against an individual value or right to privacy? What personal value would go against "trustworthiness"?

I would have thought that Milton, and others, would jump on the expression you concern yourself with as indicative of a possible "time-binding ethic".

The social values are simply those presumed to inhere in the individal and in interactions among individuals. To contrast social values as somehow "against" personal values brings out the "Republican" view that "Social" equates to "Government" and corresponding belief or value that "all government is "bad" (for business and the individual).

To avoid such abstract conflicts, let's get extensional and ask what the abstraction you commented on means in a more extensional and detailed explanation. We have a pretty good idea what privacy means, but "trustworthiness" is much to vague. How is it to be "fleshed out"?

I think we DO have a pretty good idea what "privacy" means; it means I don't have to tell on myself. All the issues you refer to above involve a contrast between one person seeking the information and another not disclosing it. It is the "right to privacy" as implemented in law, and as interpreted by those seeking information and those desiring to not disclose it and the potential consequence of acting with compared to acting without the information that is in the issue you discuss. These all come under the question I mentioned above. "My freedoms end where your rights begin." Privacy means I don't have to tell or be observed. How much privacy I can have depends on the context and how it is interpreted in the context of many other ways of interacting, mostly in the context of literal or symbolic "injury". The "right to privacy" as interpreted generally does not include extending to acts that injure others, such as having sex without telling your partner you have aids.

You don't have to tell, but if you act in such a way that not telling injures another, you have used your privacy to break a context law.

Choosing not to tell entails limiting my freedom so as not to violate the rights of others, and not just their right to privacy.

Check the link on the original post.