Britain's unique brand of 'kiss and tell' journalism has led to pressure for legislation, but ministers recognise the difficulties
Some will argue that the storm around newspaper standards can be traced back to 1997, the year when Tony Blair incorporated the European convention on human rights into British law, bringing with it article 8, which asserts that "everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life".
These people want, also, to rally the internet to their cause; a supposedly free world of 140-character tweets in which tales of celebrities' sex lives can be shared without regard to injunction or consequence.
The underlying causes, though, are somewhat more complex. Behind the phone-hacking scandal, the "superinjunction" rows, Max Mosley's unsuccessful attempt to push the European court to impose tougher rules, and the Telegraph's rap on the knuckles for subterfuge in recording Vince Cable at his constituency surgery, lie other factors.
These factors include the temptations provided by technology, whether the ease of hacking into a voicemail or just the existence of covert recording devices that can be used when a pencil and notebook would never have been proof enough. Above all, there is the combative, cut-corners, "anything to get the story" morality. Britain's tabloid press is unique in the English-speaking world with its "kiss and tell" journalism, the relatively modest penalties for transgression (Mosley's awarded damages were £60,000 following the News of the World's false story about a "sick, Nazi orgy") and the firm belief that "public interest" can be so broadly defined it is enough to pay a person for a story about an affair and publish the details solely because the other partner is married.
The hyper-competitive tabloid methodology has spread.
Last winter the Daily Telegraph decided to record comments made by Liberal Democrat MPs in their constituency surgeries, a decision unlikely to have been made 20 years ago. The paper's investigation exposed Cable's decision to "declare war on Murdoch" but also led the Press Complaints Commission to censure the paper for its "fishing expedition".
But such PCC rulings are rare. Britain's extreme journalism more commonly has other consequences. The rapid growth of privacy injunctions is one outcome.
Zac Goldsmith, who has called for a privacy law, says that it is needed because some newspapers blur the lines between genuine public interest and "what is merely of prurient interest".
Mosley went to the European court of human rights, motivated, he said, by a desire to stop the News of the World and other titles "ambushing people" by publishing intimate details without informing the person first. Wealthy celebrities will resort to the law if they believe they have to, and judging by the willingness of high court judges to grant injunctions, they get some sympathy.
On the face of it, the public also agrees. However, it is frequently observed that "the public are hypocrites", as one former tabloid editor has said. "They say they don't want to see people's privacy invaded, but everybody likes to read gossip and scandal."
It is so interesting in fact that the names of some who took out superinjunctions contributed to Twitter UK's heaviest single day of traffic.
Now, for the first time in 20 years, politicians feel safe talking about introducing a privacy law on top of the protection of article 8. But cabinet ministers admit in private that the issue gets so difficult it is impossible to proceed with legislation.
Many on Fleet Street believe that most of the storms will pass. But there's one possible exception: if the police inquiry into phone hacking is pursued vigorously that could have wide-ranging consequences.