So many metaphors. But now we learn that either data fades or privacy fades. They cannot co-exist. That seems to be the latest idea and it does make some sense:

Privacy could be enhanced if data was allowed to fade, suggests research. Dutch researcher Dr Harold van Heerde is looking into ways to gradually "degrade" the information that sites gather about visitors. Slowly swapping details for more general information can help guard against accidental disclosure, he said.

Data already does fade. I don't know if I can find a new needle to play my 45s bought in the 70s and early 80s but I am pretty sure I can't play the floppy discs that hold my law school papers from 1991. My 1995 computer just nudged that technology into the past when I bought it. Home computers have taught us that the medium truly is the message and the message is that the you that existed eight years ago is not important.

But intentionally degrading data is not an answer. Personal data can house cultural information of vast importance. Consider that just yesterday access to the personal accounts of Sir William Johnson's beer buying habits has led me to a potentially new class of pre-lager US beer. Surely the answer is not degrading data but finding a way to lock it up for a period of time and then releasing it when the person involved has no interest in whether or not we know what an enormous amount of booze he bought.