Privacy. Privacy concerns how are your information is dealt with. Each category of information about you is dealt with in its own way. These different systems just developed independently, without an overall plan, as far as I can see. I feel that this unexamined patchwork will eventually be considered comprehensively, and that when people see what is involved, they will want more control in many of the categories below, than they have today.

• Medical Records. You have the most power over these; they are in fact your records. Medical records are most often paper-based today. Significant savings would come from keeping medical records electronically, and privacy is an issue in the public debate about medical records.
• Educational Records. You have a lot of power over these; they will not be released without your permission, for each release.
• Telephone Records. This is the "billing data": date, time, and direction of each call, along with the number called. Ownership probably rests with the telephone company, but the telephone company generally is not allowed to release them to anyone except you or your authorized agent. The records can be released to a government agency via a subpoena or warrant. Telephone records are often subpoenaed in legal cases involving the flow of information. Recently (Fall 2006), Hewlett Packard was fined $14 million when it hired detective agencies that used "pretexting" in trying to trace who on its Board of Governors leaked information to the press during a dispute within the Board. Pretexting is the practice of someone working for, say, a detective agency, pretending to be you when calling the telephone company to get your telephone records. New laws are being passed to specifically make pretexting illegal. Also, telephone records are involved in the federal government's practice of tracking calls that may involve terrorism, without warrants.
• Financial Records: bank accounts, credit card accounts, car and other loans, etc. Mortgage loans are public records, along with the real estate information. I am not sure about other bank records, but credit rating companies regularly have this information. It is only supposed to be released if you authorize it, perhaps indirectly, by applying for a loan or other credit product (e.g. credit card).
• Electricity, gas, water, sewage accounts. These records are the property of the agency. Commercial entities can sell this information.
• Bureau of Motor Vehicle records. These are public, and often sold by states.
• Tax records. These are the property of the taxing authority, but they are not allowed to release them, except within the bureau, for normal use in operations, or in response to a subpoena or warrant.
• Internet Service Provider records. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) can connect your IP address and your physical identify, including real name and physical address. Each ISP should have a policy describing how it will release these records. There is no legal requirement to protect you; the records belong to the ISP. Several large Internet companies (Google, Yahoo, AOL, etc.) were criticized during the Summer of 2006, for releasing dissidents' Internet records to the Chinese government, which then prosecuted the dissidents. (Google alone came off pretty well by not releasing records.)
• Internet Server records. Each server on the Internet usually keeps records of which IP addresses visited that server, including time, date, services provided, etc. Email servers often keep copies of messages. These records are treated as the property of the organization running the server, and they are frequently sold.
• Information uploaded over the Internet. The ownership of this material, including messages, videos, blog entries, etc., is unclear.
• Tissue samples and DNA. Donated tissue samples are the product of the organization to which they were donated. They contain DNA, of course. If your DNA is stored in a database somewhere, it is usually not a total scan, but a record only of specific parts commonly used for identification. Nevertheless, we do not know what your DNA will eventually reveal about you, so these records could be a privacy time-bomb. For example, would you want your employer or health insurer to know that you will get or are prone to an expensive disease?
• Library records
• Store records (bookstores)

An article in The New York Times on December 9, 2006 (Business Day section, Page B5) quotes Dave Ramsey writing in Quick & Simple magazine on what information brokers will pay for specific pieces of information (assuming you are not a celebrity):

• Bankruptcy details: $26.50
• Worker's Compensation history: $18
• Unpublished telephone number: $17.50
• Cell phone number: $10
• Social Security Number: $8
• Date of Birth: $2
• Address: $0.50