Privacy 2.0 - a lack of privacy CREATES community sites

Venky Harinarayan makes some excellent points about Privacy 2.0 on VentureBeat.

Privacy 1.0 operated in a binary world: information about a consumer was either totally private or totally public....

The reality is that a consumer’s expectation of privacy changes as they participate more fully on the Web. Rather than expecting absolute anonymity, or absolute visibility, consumers as publishers of media now have expectations similar to that of media companies.....

This is Privacy 2.0 — the consumer as a media publisher, who expects all the rights and protections afforded to traditional media publishers.

Yeah, but a KEY point about that misused moniker, Web 2.0 (I'm pretty sure he means social software), is that some lack of privacy (detractors might say 'abuse of privacy') is essential to kicking off and growing a so-so site.

If it was all a gated community and you couldn't see anything, then is it a prison or an exclusively wealthy community??

If you implement highly ethical privacy policy, then the service becomes much harder to use, particularly for the casual user and creates a much higher barrier to entry.

Does Privacy 2.0 require an 'Experts Only' warning? It ought to, but the Marketing dept would have a fit.

Is there a need for Privacy levels? Yes, but I don't see a strict technology solution here - only time and consumers' familiarisation with the issue can patch up the difference between expectations and reality.