Changing the conversation to promote privacy

Nico Sell, cofounder of Wickr talks about how to change the argument so users don't continue down the path of relinquishing privacy in order to get the same use out of FB, Google etc.:

Sell has two daughters and is also the co-founder and CEO of the nonprofit r00tz Asylum, which runs programs for kids about security and white hat hacking at the Defcon cybersecurity conference. She explained, “When kids ask me, ‘What’s Wickr?’, I say it’s an app that spies use to send secret messages. And then they go, ‘Wow! Can I use it??’ ”

A former professional snowboarder, Sell believes online privacy should be marketed less like an adult obligation and more like an action sport. “If we would have gone to kids and said, ‘Hey, snowboarding makes your legs strong and your heart healthy,’ it wouldn’t have worked,” she says. “Instead it has to be, ‘It’s rebellious, it’s what the cool kids do, it’s what parents don’t know how to do.’ ”

Having an online identity that could be viewed by anyone in the world once seemed novel and exciting. But Sell believes it's now so commonplace that the reverse is true: Being hard to track online and having a small digital footprint makes you seem more sophisticated than those whose photos and personal information are instantly Google-able.

Read more at: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/11/07/nico_sell_the_co_founder_and_ceo_of_wickr_secure_messaging_app_says_privacy.html