I probably intend this answer to be understood a little more fully than other SodaHeads opting for this choice. They probably mean - and I do, too - that there should be no expectation of privacy by anyone who posts an entry on Myspace or any other publicly accessible computer site with regard to anything such person posts in the entry. Moreover, to the extent there are publicly verifiable facts relating to the poster, such facts can be related to the poster - nothing in a website posting can alter the legal availability of information extrinsic to the posting.

Let me start my differentiation by saying yes, sportsfans, this non-private aspect of a posting also includes SodaHead - everything you post here you'd better be ready to see published in tomorrow's local newspaper, particularly if you're the one who has compromised the integrity of your SH "secret identity". Even if your identity has been compromised by illegal means, you're still not going to have rights against someone who thereafter came upon it legally. Please note that I'm not saying that's the way things should be, that's the way things are.

I made that last clarification not because I necessarily oppose people being held responsible in such situations, I don't, given the plausible range of alternatives, but I wanted SodaHeads to be aware of what the world is like, in case some of them have forgotten (or never learned - did you fail to read the enrollment agreement when you signed on to SodaHead? tsk, tsk.)

Mixing the real world and the desired one for a second, let me point out further that any assumption one makes of a right of privacy is done at one's own risk. Many Americans tend to think that they have some broad "right of privacy" under the Bill Of Rights or some other part of the US Constitution. That's a very dangerous assumption. In a few instances federal courts have talked about a right of privacy, either under the alleged "penumbras" of the Ninth Amendment or more generally being inherent in the Constitution, but those pronouncements are now fairly much discredited.

And rightfully so. A "right of privacy" does not exist in a vacuum. A right of privacy exists only to the degree it inhibits others from talking about that which is private. In other words, your right of privacy exists in a general fashion only because it limits my freedom of speech. Now, I'm sure, there are some out there chawing at the bit, wishing to assert that there is a Constitutional right of privacy assertable against the government or against other specific groups. There are two things to keep in mind in that regard. First of all, I am talking about the existence - or, more informatively, the non-existence - of one's Constitutional Rights; there are any number of State and federal statutes that establish rights of privacy, I do not have the time to get to those now. The point I wish to make in closing, however, is the absurdity of having information which is publicly available for all to use but is somehow unusable by authorities. That anomaly exists - the suppression of illegally seized criminal evidence being, perhaps, the most widely recognized example thereof. However, I am puzzled by the need for even that classification, and am amazed that some people think such an anomaly so worthy an achievement that they are at pains to increase its occurrence. To them I repeat my advice above, any privacy protection is an abridgment of the right of free speech, an abridgment which is very likey to impact directly on the public's ability to know, use, and transmit the truth.