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@Velocio
That's spot on.
The difference is really a fine line. We'd be stopping third parties being able to see what we were up to by looking at the traffic to and from the server, but in no way would be stopping people visiting the site and reading everything.
So why bother? Well beyond the principal of being snooped upon, the comparison is that it is the difference between having someone bug a conversation without your say-so, and them coming up to you after the event and asking what was said. The bugging is intrusive and real-time, the approaching to ask what has been said is un-intrusive and allowed us to choose how to present ourselves.
As someone else pointed out, there is stuff on here that we wouldn't necessarily want to be made public at all (private threads, private messages, phone numbers, etc). Not that anything we do on here is interesting to anyone (let's face it, on a grand scale we're as dull as dishwater), but at least we have the right to have that conversation in private.
Does it need to be private? No. But do we have the right to privacy? Yes. This is an on principal approach to our rights, simply saying that we should exercise the rights that we have, and in doing so protect those rights... rather than just give them up.
And yeah, my little stance, enforced upon you guys, isn't really going to change the world. But at least I'll have felt I have done something, a little thing. I already donate regularly to a few online groups like the Open Rights Group, Electronic Frontier Foundation and a few others... I'm probably already classified as a crank or something.
I ask mostly to ensure that: 1) You guys aren't of strong opposition to my using the site like this. 2) That it won't prevent any of you from accessing the site (that I'm not cutting off my nose to spite my face, or however that saying goes).
I'm really glad that by and large you guys agree with my views.