But it isn't the exclusivity of what we can find and buy online that leads us to breach our traditional notions of a personal-privacy wall around us. Instead, it's almost always convenience that tugs us across the line. Instead, what we really love is the idea that we can sit down at our leisure, in our homes or on our lunch break, and leisurely peruse the immense virtual shelves of the virtual Amazon bookstore, or prowl through the virtual boots and fishing gear at good ol' L.L. Bean. Any time of the day or night. Without picking up the phone or getting in the car and driving to the mall.
Convenience is a powerful motivator.
In an era of convenience stores, convenience foods, and convenience everything else, convenience has become a primary driver in many buying decisions. Electronic commerce clearly benefits from that societal trend. A primary job for the vendors will be to persuade us to keep giving them our personal information. Far from apparently moving away from caring about personal-privacy issues, I think we'll decide that as much as we like finding and buying things online, we don't want to give up much of that personal privacy. And we'll make that clear in our choice of the online merchants we support.