Recently, Mark Zuckerberg released a 3,200-word Facebook privacy manifesto, highlighting six privacy principles around which the platform will be rebuilt over the next several years. Critics were quick to cast doubt on Zuckerberg's sincerity. Others questioned how the new manifesto would square with Facebook's business model, which hinges on advertisers' liberal access to user data.

But I see another fundamental problem: What does it even mean to focus on privacy? Privacy is amorphous. There are many definitions of privacy, and they depend on countless factors. For one person, the value of privacy may be about freedom of choice–the ability to manage her own state of well-being without her data getting scooped up and monetized. For another person, privacy might be about anonymity–the status quo that you mind your own business.

Intriguingly, there is no single word or phrase for "privacy" in Vietnamese. Privacy might be used as a form of physical seclusion or isolation or secretive information hidden from the public–it depends on the context and the people involved. Even then, some words are still interchangeable. Riêng t? means personal or private. Bí m?t means secret. Chuy?n m?t means a personal or confidential issue. The word "privacy" has similar complexity in Russian and French.