Abstract
The emergence of the internet posed substantial challenges to the public/private distinction, that is structuring in many models that think about the social world, the institutions and legal norms. (1) The homology between spatial location and access to one or another sphere is increasingly less sustainable. (2) There is a transition without solution from private communication to public exposure. (3) The public exposure loses its context, since it can be reproduced to any other audience. (4) Privacy remains on hold before the vigilance on the online communicative exchanges, including the ones that would be private. The text analyses the effects of the disparity between the assumptions of the current legal norm and the socially structured experience.
Keywords:
Internet; Public-private distinction; Privacy; Democracy; Vigilance