Source: Business
Insider
That’s not to suggest there isn’t already a host of Google products
engaging with you. From a simple idea that everything connects, which can
organized and analyzed that empowered Google Search, the company has extended
its reach to geo-maps, Android mobile phones and other devices, drone-delivery,
wearable technology with an optical head-mounted display, and health monitoring
devices. Google still believes that data will flow through everything and “…if
everything’s quantifiable and traceable, it wants to be the company that monetizes
that. … Whatever serves to connect people to what they want also serves to
educate Google’s giant artificial brain about what they want, enriching the
data-stream on which advertising’s value depends.” (Burkeman)
The European Union and United States Markets reaction to online
privacy erosion that Google’s strategic vision entails is a “Tale of Two
Markets” like Dicken’s narrative tradition in that "It was the best of
times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of
foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity …
[when] some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for
good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. (Dickens)
Privacy in the European Union Market
Across European Union countries, citizens express concern
they are losing control of how and why their personal data is being used. New privacy
laws are expected to be enacted in 2015 that are expected to increase the
enforcement powers of data regulators, potentially allowing them to sanction
companies with fines of as much as $125 million for privacy violations. These
new laws will strengthen already stringent 1995 EU privacy rules whose foundation
was nation-state laws adopted in the 1970s. While European’s adopt new
technologies and social media as robustly as Americans, these new laws and
legal actions are being pushed by a new generation of computer techies,
crusading bureaucrats, and privacy lawyers that could set a new global privacy standard
against the unwieldy will of the Internet, seen by a growing number of
Europeans, as a symbol of American Google hegemony the way Coca-Cola or
McDonald’s or Disneyland have been to past generations. (Miller Llana)
“Yet all of Europe,” Claude Moraes, a member of European Parliament
says, “agrees on one point that sets it apart from the US: If Americans value
freedom of speech as an inalienable right that sometimes must trump privacy, in
Europe the right to privacy is so fundamental that all national laws must
consider it.” “The protection of personal data, and restricted use of data, and
right of people to decide what can be done is one of the most fundamental
principles of a democracy,” notes Spiros Simitis, who drafted Germany’s
pioneering protection law. (Miller Llana)
Source: Truste
In Google vs Spain,
which originated with an aggrieved calligrapher in Spain, the European Court of
Justice in Luxembourg ruled that individuals have the right under the EU Data Protection
Directive to request that personal data be removed from search engines such as
Google, when a claimant proves to Google that the data has harmed them or, is
no longer relevant, even without being outdated or inaccurate. Although
world-wide media case reporting incorrectly termed the decision as the affirmation
of a right to be “forgotten” online, the ruling has emboldened the EU privacy legislative
movement and its demand for application worldwide. So far, Google has received
more than 193,000 requests to be “forgotten” but has rejected 60 percent of the
requests it has received. (Miller Llana)
Importantly, the court decision emphasizes that the right
to be forgotten is nowhere to be found in the current EU legal framework, related
to cases where information was legitimately published, so that its data protection
law does not provide a right to eliminate truthful, but embarrassing
information. The distinction is that a genuine right to be “forgotten," would
provide a data subject the right to request the deletion of the data based on a
whim, or a preference, while under this decision there are significant
probative and argumentative efforts necessary for a claimant to prove to Google
(or under appeal, later to a court) that such data is harmful and it violates
personality rights. (Cofone)
Privacy in the United States Market
Uniform privacy protection policy and practice development has
been delegated by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to an industry group
called the Tracking Protection Working Group − the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C). Charged with standardizing “Do Not Track” privacy rules that conceptually
mirror FTC “Do Not Call” telephone regulations, it is staffed by industry experts
but is dominated by Internet giants like Adobe, Apple, Facebook, Google and
Yahoo.
The Future of Online Privacy Protection
According to a Harvard Business School study, the collection
of individual user data provides half of the Internet’s economic value while e-commerce
content relies at least partially, on paid advertising. The $42.8 billion spent
on digital advertising in 2014, now exceeds broadcast television ad spend. Researchers
Tim Hwang and Adi Kamdar have postulated the concept of “peak advertising,” where
advertising reaches its maximum ROI effectiveness and then begins a slow
decline, as evidenced by Google’s average cost-per-click ad rate has generally
been falling since 2011. In 1994, the first online banner ad, was clicked by an
astonishing 78% of its audience. Today for Facebook ads, click-though is one-20th
of 1% which plays into the hand of huge firms like Google and Facebook that retain
the worldwide distribution networks and massive datasets that can make
advertising pay at all. (Campbell, Jr.)
Although security experts and tech leaders believe
anonymity will be a bigger part of the digital future, I believe that in post-
9/11(2001) America, which is deeply entangled by Middle East warfare and
potential homeland terror attacks, there is little legislative interest in protecting
individual user privacy beyond those of protected groups like children protected
under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. According to Nicole Wong, former
Google and Twitter executive and White House advisor who helped author its
report on how the massive collection of personal data online could affect the
way people live and work, survey participants expressed concern about “that the
[data prediction] algorithm will presume what people want, in a way that closes
off opportunities for them - that there are opportunities they will simply
never see.” (Sorcher) These questions go beyond the EU’s narrowly-focused concern
over privacy to embrace equity and access questions that raise ethical concerns
legislatures, technologists and the public must address over the way Google
uses data and what is the right public policy outcome for the data’s use.
Individual American’s online privacy protection can not
wait for unified industry or government action, rather individuals should
consider taking the following self-protection measures today:
- Become Informed: Publishers like The Christian Science Monitor have launched public education platforms like Passcode, a modern field guide to security and privacy, where its network of expert correspondents from around the globe will share their perspectives on cybersecurity and privacy to help make the Internet safe and secure.
- Utilize Technology Options: Responding to backlash, tech giants such as Google, Apple and Yahoo have developed encryption technologies for their services like email. The Tor Project, an international group of researchers and technologists, maintain an Internet network in which all users are anonymous and their locations are hidden. Niche tech companies such as San Francisco-based BitTorrent which builds software so Internet users can keep their identities and data hidden and Chicago-based Guerrilla offers anonymous, disposable email accounts - have won over mainstream customers after once mainly serving tech geeks and cyber rabble-rousers. (Somerville)
- Be Online Wisely: Since the backbone of the Internet was created through the federally funded Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the US government has been tracking Internet growth and usage, from its inception. The protection of individual anonymity rights in a platform pervasive with pornography, gambling, and which enables criminal intents and terrorism will likely be won only after the Digital Age enters its Second Generation of technology development as well as user sophistication and socialization.
Burkeman, Oliver (14 September 2014) Death, drones and
driverless cars: how Google wants to control our lives. The Guardian-UK. [Website] Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/22/what-does-google-want-glass-drones-self-driving-cars
Campbell Jr., Fred B. (27 December 2014) The Slow Death of
'Do Not Track'. The New York Times.
Cofone, Ignacio (Spring 2015) Google v. Spain: A Right To
Be Forgotten? Chicago-Kent Journal of
International and Comparative Law
Dickens, Charles (1859) A
Tale of Two Cities. London: Chapman and Hall. Retrieved from http://www.archive.org/stream/adventuresofoliv00dickiala#page/n401/mode/2up
Miller Llana, Sara and de Pomereau, Isabelle. (16 January
2015) Europe pivots between safety and privacy online. Christian Science Monitor [Website] Retrieved from Retrieved from http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2015/0118/Europe-pivots-between-safety-and-privacy-online
Somerville, Heather (2 October 2014) Tech industry working
to revive Internet anonymity; Companies creating ways for people to use the Web
in privacy. The Tampa Tribune (Florida).
Sorcher, Sara Nicole Wong on how big data could change the
way we live. Christian Science Monitor [Website] Retrieved from http://passcode.csmonitor.com/nicolewong
Zervas, George (26 January 2015) Do-Not-Track and the
Economics of Third-Party Advertising. Boston
University. Retrieved from http://www.bu.edu/hic/2015/01/26/georgos-zervas-do-not-track-and-the-economics-of-third-party-advertising/
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