Comment by jmalkin

Yeah this is not the same at all.

That one phone exchange operator couldn't make hundreds of billions of dollars by selling access to the information for advertising for example.

When I think about the privacy I value, it's more like I don't want to be manipulated and have a soulless corporation benefiting from my private life.

Small town gossip and eavesdropping is human and harmless, but I'd be pissed off at phone lady too.

Maybe the townsfolk weren't because they knew her and she was harmless or not creepy or something.