Attention Economy


Friday, January 24, 2020

Big Tech, Privacy and the Emergence of Surveillance Capitalism

You Are Now Remotely Controlled – Surveillance Capitalism
London Police Are Taking Surveillance to a Whole New Level

Anger at Big Tech Unites Noodle Pullers and Code Writers. Washington Is All Ears.

We Read 150 Privacy Policies. They Were an Incomprehensible Disaster.

The Roots of Big Tech Run Disturbingly Deep

Tech Giants Amass a Lobbying Army for an Epic Washington Battle

How Silicon Valley gamed the world's toughest privacy rules
Related:

How one country blocks the world on data privacy

Big tech faces competition and privacy concerns in Brussels

How Capitalism Betrayed Privacy
Columbia University Law Professor Tim Wu makes an interesting point:
“The historical link between privacy and the forces of wealth creation helps explain why privacy is under siege today. It reminds us, first, that mass privacy is not a basic feature of human existence but a byproduct of a specific economic arrangement — and therefore a contingent and impermanent state of affairs. And it reminds us, second, that in a capitalist country, our baseline of privacy depends on where the money is. And today that has changed.”

Be Afraid of Economic ‘Bigness.’
“From a political perspective, we have recklessly chosen to tolerate global monopolies and oligopolies in finance, media, airlines, telecommunications and elsewhere, to say nothing of the growing size and power of the major technology platforms. In doing so, we have cast aside the safeguards that were supposed to protect democracy against a dangerous marriage of private and public power.”