사내 주간 뉴스레터 'Internal Update'에 연재하는 '프라이버시 코너'에 실은 글. 내용은 TIME과 TheVerge.com의 기사를 참조함.
Guess What Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year 2013?
Can you summarize this year in a single word? Health? Happiness? Change? Surveillance?
Dictionary.com, one of the most-visited online dictionary sites has chosen one unlike any other; e.g., “selfie” (self-portrait) by Oxford Dictionary, or “science” by Merriam-Webster.
“Privacy” is the word Dictionary.com has chosen to symbolize this year.
Why? Because it has mostly been the front and centre of our attention all year long – do you remember Edward Snowden’s shocking revelations about NSA’s sweeping covert surveillance of Internet traffic? How about Snapchat that allows you to share your racy and potentially embarrassing pictures with your close friends then automatically disappears after a few seconds? What’s even more interesting was that, as it turned out those Snapchat photos could also be recoverable! Oh, don’t forget the sneaky, glass-like wearable computer “Google Glass.”
As Dictionary.com sees it, the word “privacy” is such an interesting word, derived from privatus, the Latin word for those things that were not publicis (public), although it’s not a new word like “selfie.” “Privacy” is also a word in evolutionary change as our society evolves fast with new technologies.
The definitions of privacy in a traditional sense are:
• the quality or state of being apart from company or observation; and
• freedom from unauthorized intrusion or disturbance.
However, as the context and environment in which we live changes, it is in need of more sophisticated and polished definition. For example, “free from whom” would be a big question. Is it the other person in the restaurant wearing Google Glass, or the NSA, or your spying app, or any other “new” things?
How about an embarrassing “Facebook moment,” where you complained about your boss then busted? You knew that your Facebook friends would see it, but didn’t expect the posting spread farther enough for your boss to find out. Because publicly accessible doesn’t necessarily mean people want it to be publicized. If you regard everything “publicly accessible” as public, it’ll be much harder to keep your privacy in this ubiquitous, social-media-saturated Internet world.
That is also why Dictionary.com’s choice of “Privacy” as this year’s word resonates with us even more. It forces us to think again about what is happening, and what we need to do in the online world.
Here's the reason Dictionary.com has provided for choosing "Privacy" as this year's keyword:
