A new form of privacy

I wonder how old one would have to be to remember a time where surveillance was only conducted by the state (for reasons of security). Today, surveillance has so many purposes that relate to the market it seems like anyone can figure out what I am buying and when and then categorize me accordingly. This exact issue was seen with the "Beacon System" put forth by Facebook. This form of surveillance basically told people what their friends had purchased online. Users profile pictures and private activities were distributed across their own networks as a personal add. Now to me this seems ridiculous and strikes me as a total invasion of privacy. But as previously discussed in my blogs, I think that we sign off on the conventional form privacy when we accept to Facebook's "terms and conditions". Overall, the more information we release, the harder it will be for us to control how it is used.... fair enough I think. But the question is... why are we even releasing this information? I think that today, simply, my generation does not think of privacy in the conventional sense. An article that I have previously spoken of, from The Nation, considers that “new privacy” is about controlling how many people know one's information and not if anyone knows. I completely agree with this fact, people who engage in social networking find "privacy" in their ability to control who and how people come across their information, and definitely not whether they do at all. If the way in which we envision and understand privacy is constantly changing and if the types of surveillance which were are becoming subject to are growing, all i can ask is where will it stop? How much will we expose of ourselves before we realize that what we get in return is not worth what we are loosing? Just curious....?