"If people really knew what we had on them, the Google engineer said, they would flip out."
This reminds me of what an Air Force officer told me about our presence in the Middle East. "If people knew what we were doing here, there would be riots in the streets." Verbatim.
Seems like the goal in 2018 is making sure people know as little as possible about your real motives.
11
At one point am I my data? So that selling "my data" is selling me? And don't you need a warrant to do surveillance? How can I get a copy of my data?
6
“I thought it was a joke at first, to be contacted by someone named ‘Alastair Mactaggart,’ ” says Chris Jay Hoofnagle.....
Perfect!
9
The most powerful quote from this article:
“People and institutions ... can seem all-powerful right up to the moment they are not. And sometimes ... a thing that can’t possibly happen suddenly becomes a thing that cannot be stopped.”
9
"Mactaggart was giddy, even emotional. “Everyone who could have blocked it didn’t,” he said. “When the system wants to work, it can.”"
That statement is scary. The "system" has to work for the people in our democratic republic without failing. Failure of "the system" is what has taken our democratic tepublic to the current brink of destruction.
6
We must protect privacy. No compromise. No way to entice people to sign up for free email and then rob their dreams and aspirations. Mighty USA must protect their citizens.
Good job. Good article.
7
Great article.
Mighty USA needs people privacy.
We can’t be sold out.
Keep up the good work.
No free email accounts please.
3
If you spy on them, it's a crime. If they spy on you, it's good business. Only in America!
Irony is that they do not even offer a a choice to pay for their service to avoid any tracking at all. Unfortunately, even if they charged you, they would still spy on you as the obligatory maximize profits by adding yet another revenue stream.
7
What a great article. Little did I know back the 1980s when I was writing programs to create "purchase behavior analytics" and predictive analytics from grocery and other purchases would we be in this state today. Back then we could predict a lot of behavior just with purchases, today with all the behavior that existing on the Internet is rich with possibilities.
To this day I don't use social media never have. I realized through my own work just what could happen with a rich data set. So good for California for trying to stop the misuse of data.
Now we need to get companies to stop reporting income to credit agencies, get banks to go back to being more personal about loans rather then just analytical. Let's get credit agencies to really stop pushing credit scores and other data as much as they do today.
9
Some have suggested that instead of providing their content for "free", these privacy harvesting corporations might charge a monthly fee instead for their content services.
How terribly misguided we have become, where backwards is forwards and up is down.
What should be the rule and norm is that the people using these so-called "services" should be paid for the data they provide, should they choose to provide it at all.
8
I give Mr. McTaggart a standing ovation for bravery in his fight to protect citizens’ privacy. I wish all people took their responsibilities as citizens so seriously.
Two moments of unease struck me in this excellent article:
1) The tech giants’ reaction, when they were denied carte blanche authority to re-write legislation protecting people’s privacy, should be a wake-up call. The entitlement and sheer gall of their tactics lead me to despair because...
2) The Attorney General of California is now our nation’s de facto privacy officer. The legislation that all parties agreed to was “mysteriously” rewritten before it hit the floor for a vote. How likely is it that the AG will actually bring any kind of action opposed by Silicon Valley oligarchs?
10
I have never visited Facebook. However, I understand they spend billions of dollars providing a service that many people value. They collect and sell user data rather than charge a monthly fee. The article fails to mention this. Would the author rather Facebook offer users the alternative of paying $25-50/month as a subscription, and keep all personal data private. I bet most users would rather continue the current system. the author appears to believe Facebook should be "free".
2
@Donna Gray: It is not as simple as that. I suppose you are already subscribing to Times and probably you are your friends have a Netflix subscription.
Times had a huge backlash when they decided to charge for what was given away for free and still many new organizations including the venerable BBC give away for free - New you can trust. We understand the value and are paying for it.
I don't think Netflix ever gave their services for free and as far as anyone know Netflix is not trading in user information.
Ditto for Apple. For all its problems, Apple seems scrupulous (at least till now) about the user data. And Apple is making pot loads of money.
If Facebook thinks they are really providing a useful service, they can start charging and people will pay, It is not far fetched. LinkedIn has a paid service with more features and they seem to be doing fine even without sucking out user data. (Not sure how Microfsoft is operating it though)
7
I'm surprised more people don't take an active role in protecting themselves online. I use Ghostery, Superantispyware and uBlock Origin, three useful and not very difficult to install protective aps that destroy a site's ability to track you and suppress advertising when I browse.
If everyone used privacy protections online, I wonder if Facebook & company would try to outlaw our right make use of them? A lot of people seem to worry more about Facebook's ability to make money than about their own online privacy.
15
"the United States, unlike some countries, has no single, comprehensive law regulating the collection and use of personal data"
It's really unfortunate more hasn't been done
16
Serious question. If Google and its customers, the advertisers, know so much about me, how come they always start to relentlessly advertise products to me AFTER I've just bought them??? When they can advertise these products to me before I know I want them, then I will be impressed. And, I guess, worried.
12
@Trilby
And this sloppiness is an indication of how inefficient this "industry" can be and still make money. And all the money they rake in is paid for like a tax on goods and services we buy. I would say this is in fact bad for our economy.
2
There is a remedy to this problem of data mining in some areas of our life: get off of the social media platforms and go back to the USPS or the telephone. Yes, so-called snail mail is slower, but your envelope is sealed and pictures and information stay inside the sealed envelope. No one sees the stuff except the person who opens the envelope. And the telephone works great for contact with family, friends, business colleagues, and firms who want to sell you stuff. Yes, some things might take longer to find out, but we survived just fine for a long time without social media and could do it again. In fact many people don't use social media at all.
I realize this won't solve all problems: print media is too expensive any more. I couldn't afford the NYTimes at all in print. And shopping is certainly easier when I can visit various sites and compare prices, etc. So there we definitely need privacy protection.
13
Thank you, Nicholas Confessore, for really excellent and compelling journalism that not only brought these individuals and this incredibly complex issue to life but which also effectively provides a masterclass in how real political wrangling works and the kind of tenacity it takes to win.
12
It's great to read an article like this which gives hope that one individual with passion and tenacity can make a difference.
11
Absolutely agree that we should all be able to understand and protect our privacy. And Trump's destruction of Net Neutrality is unforgivable. But... the no one offers any solution for who would pay for all the information online, and the cost of storing, sorting and serving it.
Content is not free. Are you will to pay a Facebook or Gmail membership fee to take back control of your data? Doubtful.
4
@R.A.K. I would be willing to pay tech companies not to mine my data for profit.
My worry? They would take the money and do it anyway.
4
@R.A.K.
Yes, I would like to pay a fee.
This is why I frequently "tag" myself as lawn furniture or a fireplace in Facebook posts.
15
Riveting article. Thank you. Now what we need is a bulleted outline for us layfolk of what the new law means. Pros and cons for consumers.
13
Too late! It would be better if everyone's data were explicitly published for everyone to see, including those of organizations (yes, government's too). Why should only a few selected entities be allowed to (mis)use this data?
1
Consider Google's gmail, or any email for that matter, how is it that it's illegal for someone to open my old fashioned snail-mail, but not illegal for Google to read gmail? (my employer provided email is another animal)
These companies should be governed as a public square not a publisher.
Or in this case a public utility like the various postal and shipping services.
As I have said before, their prime mover is control. Nothing less.
19
If you all thought Silicon Valley cares about you and your lives outside their world I hope this article changed your mind a little. They are all about money. How anyone could think otherwise at this point amazes me.
Great article. And yes government can be made to work.
28
@Southern
Of course, all businesses care about money, as that is the nature of business. However, out of nearly all of the businesses on the planet, the tech companies provide the most while requiring the least from consumers.
From searching for information, providing access to information, establishing a means to communicate with others via text/image/audio/video, supplying a platform to transmit and solicit ideas, conveying a means to navigate the world, to providing the mechanism to better understand data, tech companies often provide these valuable services at no direct charge to the user.
Compare this with electric service, natural gas service, petroleum, the auto industry, the housing market, healthcare, appliance manufacturers, airlines, insurance companies, and most other capitalistic enterprises where the fee-for-service or product model requires the extraction of a financial penalty, creating a situation where there are haves and have-nots.
With most of the tech industry's services, access is offered free-of-charge to everyone equally. A billionaire can perform a Google search just as efficiently as a homeless person residing in a shelter.
If other industries were more like tech, one could submit a few personal details and watch a few ads and then be able to obtain free transportation, healthcare, and housing. How much better the world would be if this was the case.
Tech has provided the most benefits while requiring the least expense.
2
@Eternal Tech
As an engineer and a member of the tech community for over 30 years, I agree that tech has provided many benefits. However, not everyone wants it free or at the least expense. I would take your comments more seriously if these companies offered a paid service where in return I did not have every ounce of my personal data vacuumed up like a Dyson and sold to the highest bidder.
5
@Eternal Tech What use is free internet access to a homeless person who can't afford a smartphone? A billionaire and a middle or working class person might have equal access to the information available in a google search, but only the billionaire can access the analytics data generated by said google search and add it to the years of highly personal analytics data that's been collected by google, facebook, amazon, apple, and comcast, etc. The billionaire can generate wealth just by selling or reselling this data to other companies, marketing firms, researchers, or even to white nationalist political candidates or hostile foreign governments seeking to undermine US democracy. Meanwhile, I can't even find out exactly what information they've collected on me or opt out of allowing my data to be harvested or sold (without isolating myself from mainstream society).
2
Every on-line forum, public meeting or staged event attracts people from all sides of an issue. Those whose beliefs conform to the stated agenda will aggressively share them, and those in opposition will figure out ways to manipulate the venue to their own advantage. But the 'true believers' will usually outnumber the 'infiltrators'.
This seems to be the case in the data privacy (data rights) movement. For example, in many open-source on-line venues (e.g. GNU-Linux), this seems to be the case. For this reason many open source projects have been sabotaged over the years. When this happens a splinter group, comprised of the 'true believers', will often break away from the main body. Fake groups, who purposely mis-represent themselves, are not uncommon either. But they tend to die-on-the-vine whereas the true believers keep the viable technologies going.
Ad-hoc groups are especially vulnerable to this problem. It is less problematic if the group is formally organized, such as those who make big decisions using Robert's rules of order.
Ad-hoc groups are also susceptible to 'psychological infiltrators'. These are people who obtain pleasure from deliberately disrupting the work of the dedicated volunteers. It requires some training to spot these people in the group. They tend to have psychological profiles similar to vandals, bullies and graffiti artists. That is to say, they get their kicks by disrupting, destroying or controlling the work of others.
1
As I'm reading this article, every couple of paragraphs there's ad after ad showing me particulate filters from Acklands Grainger and others for various Ford cars. Because one time I bought a respirator on sale and idly looked up in Google for some replacement filter elements; and I went to the Calgary Stampede and played the Ford VR game and walked away with a Ford barbecue cleaner (after providing name & email address). I have no doubt online companies know almost every thing about me. Every time I log into Google maps, they ask me to confirm my home address and "Is this where you work, by the way?" I'm not angered by it, or worried about it, however if some Google employee decided they wanted to ambush me, it wouldn't be hard for them to figure out a few choice spots to plan the hit.
1
@Grunchy What about if creditors want to buy your data from Google so they can ambush you. Or if an overzealous police department wants buy data from google to keep an eye on people using certain search terms. Or if a political party decides to track opponents to suppress their votes or retaliate in some way.
5
Excellent reporting. As a San Franciscan, citizen, and business person I respect McTaggart for getting this much passed. I was wrong to assume these tech cos are doing good. Remember do no harm? Shame on them and pols. Hats off the CA for the ballot initiative process and caring citizens and nonprofit groups.
4
Ironically, any commercial email account Mactaggart and Soltani used to communicate also scanned their emails to generate more data points on each of them.
2
@FR Haha I was thinking about that while reading this article. I assume Google and Facebook read all of Mactaggart and Soltani's email exchanges. But unlike Big Business which relies on subterfuge to influence public opinion and govt policies, when you're motivated by pure, people motivated by pure, honest convictions, say the same things publicly and privately.
1
Now lobbyists for Big Data have two years to make the law completely toothless. Plenty of money, and plenty of time.
7
Nonsense. So much of Facebook's and Google's model is based upon selling information about you and advertising that it would show up in with loser profits and a lower stock price. It did not really with Facebook because it's back to it's Jan 2018 price and did not with Google because it had a revenue beat for this past quarter.
While we are on the subject of Google, I want to know when they are going to pay royalties for all the bootleg music videos etc they have on Youtube. They claim they don't because as a hosting site it is not responsible for posted content. However I argue that it is responsible because it places ads within the content, hence altering the content. It also may place ads based upon one's viewing habits. With all of its search sophistication, rather than waiting for a complaint to take the video down, I argue that Google has the knowhow to review the video for content before it's posted. For example if the video's has Beyoncé in it's tag, then it's a no brainer.
1
To quote that great American philosopher Lou Mannheim: "The main thing about money, Bud, is that it makes you do things you don't want to do." And he didn't even know that 'Don't be Evil' went bye-bye.
1
The law will be changed and watered down. He did not win.
Fundamentally, the reason that the issue of perpetual, coerced privacy forfeiture persists is that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have identified it as a serious problem. Trump has essentially called for Snowden to be executed, while the Obama administration was quite clearly simpatico with the very worst of Silicon Valley. Technology companies that profit by spying on us, including accessing our personal photos, GPS locations, and personal contacts are effectively complicit in building the underlying infrastructure for the type of state that George Orwell could not even have imagined. All of us should demand that our legislators put a stop to it.
26
Between the lines of this article is the conviction that legislative politics in America is the purview of the rich and well-connected. The fact is that Mactaggart was only taken seriously because he checked the right boxes. Would Hoofnagle have helped him out so generously if he was not, in fact, a rich real estate guy? Would Facebook and Google have been shaking in their boots if he had been a Bay Area activist? Unbelievably this guy comes across as a hero when it’s clear to me that he is a technophobe who doesn’t like to be pushed around by those he considers his equals, and likes to make deals.
1
What this article reveals is Americans, as well as all people around the world, are too trusting, too naive when it comes to voluntarily putting their personal private in formation out on a public platform and expect their information is safe, not going to be abused or worse.
I have not and will never put any real personal information on any web platform on line, especially social media platforms like facebook and google.
Anyone who puts their real life personal information on a social media web platform is asking for trouble, and when it comes, they act shocked. Trusting the govt of all things to protect your privacy is naive at best, moronic at worst.
Needless to say, I have several anonymous accounts, innocuous names for just web browsing and social interactions.
If it's not a govt secured web site that you need to utilize such as IRS info, DoD govt agency, Social Security Admin, etc, never, and I mean never put any personal private information (real name identity info) you want kept private, confidential, on a social media web site. To do so only invites abuse or worse, you may irrevocably regret.
1
@Jack Don't worry, they know who you are anyway based on your SSN, credit history, and public records and don't think government "secured" websites aren't selling your data to third parties.
3
Unfortunately, as the Guardian.uk noted in two related articles this week (1) Google records your location even when you tell it not to, but fortunately there is a fix, at least for Google: (2) How to turn off Google's location tracking | Technology | The Guardian
4
Even if I opt off of social media, Google and Apple follow me incessantly through software I cannot opt out of. It is disgusting how little politicians and companies care about consumers. Maybe their husbands, wives and children will have to be stalked and/or harmed by these policies before anything changes.
@Sara K
The tech companies use this data to improve their services and to serve more effective advertising to you. It would be counterproductive for them to stalk you.
Most companies that you do direct business with, such as your electric provider, telephone company, mortgage company, natural gas supplier, automobile company, bank, brokerage firm, health insurance company, medical providers, etc. already know your address. If they wanted to stalk you, they could already easily do so. However, when was the last time that one of these businesses was responsible for stalking you or anyone you know?
1
@Eternal tech
on whose payroll are you?
1
An outstanding article! A must read.
1
It is clear that big tech cares little for protecting us and cares a lot about profit. In a capitalist economy that is allowed. But, they also exist in a system of democracy that allows them the power they have. Why don’t they use their considerable power to destroy Trump and kill GOP power in Congress? I would have no issue with Google mining my data if it helped Dems defeat the GOP.
Seeing how Facebook has no problem aiding in ethnic cleansing (https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/myanmar-facebook-hate/) , does anybody really think that they will not attempt to kill any privacy bill?
For example, instead of just shutting their operations in Myanmar for the time being, they keep ognoring the spread of fake news that directly results in ethnic cleansing. They deflect by banning Alex Jones, but not actual murderous thugs. This is an utterly amoral company, run by amoral people. Google is slightly better, but not by much.
3
@True Norwegian
Every minute, "510,000 comments are posted, 293,000 statuses are updated, and 136,000 photos are uploaded" on Facebook (source: https://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook-statistics/ ). Do you seriously expect Facebook or any other company to monitor all of these posts in real-time to prevent anything negative from being transmitted?
Banning Alex Jones is easy, as the accounts he uses can be identified and disabled. However, Facebook has over 2.23 billion monthly active users, some who post sexist, racist, libelous, false, and inflammatory messages. It is not feasible to identify all of these users' posts for unsuitable content with 100% accuracy.
One of the dangers of supplying a platform for free speech is that some "bad speech," however you wish to define it, is going to get through. This is one of the negatives of freedom that exists well beyond social media.
Thank you New York Times. This article alone was worth a month's subscription.
7
Facebook should change its name to garbage book.
1
What a laugh - your headline - "The unlikely activists who took on Silicon Valley & won". WON ? Really ?
I just read an interesting article yesterday that showed me, though I had opted out of certain location & privacy settings, how Google for one, had ignored my choices & gone ahead to an astounding degree and invaded my privacy.
It was extremely hard and tedious to eliminate an amazing wealth of data they have stolen from you and me & ALL of us - DESPITE what I chose.
Go look - you'll see ! "Do no Evil" ? Sure. You and all the rest.
You wanna defeat the "Russkies" and all the other thieves of your Democracy ? Turn some of this Garbage OFF for a day. You'd make their heads spin. But very few of you will deny yourselves a thing - won't you ? Even if it means the destruction of your countries freedom and yours as well.
"And won" ? I think you need a slight revision of your headline, don't you?
1
Facebooks is not your friend.
Run!
4
Facebook and Google are leaches. They are parasites preying on the gullibility and greedy public. All they ask is that you sell your soul for conveniences you do not need and should not want. Choose wisely. Once they've convinced you they're indispensable it's too late.
DD
Manhattan
2
This bill, come 2020, will be unrecognizable, having been eviscerated, sterilized, and vacuum packed in plastic wrap.
3
I have some experience with personalization technology. It can be really useful, If only it were it were just used for recommending entertainment - there’s no harm in tracking what music you like. Google and Facebook have taken it to the commercial extreme though. And I really question the value of their advertising service. Especially considering a lot of “views” are generated on a whim or by bots.
What seems to be missed in articles like this is that privacy has two very important meanings and the media constantly conflates the two.
There is private information stored in computers used for target marketing, which is essentially harmless- as long as human beings can't get access to it to use against a person for other purposes- which brings us to the second meaning of privacy.
The privacy that has been a big issue since the beginning of civilization is the wall between the individual and the society they live in. It is about sustaining status in ones community at the very least and actual survival at the worst.
Most people have pieces of information whose public knowledge could be damaging to their careers and/or status in society.
Companies like Google may possess this kind of information about individuals, but the discussion of privacy needs to clearly divide the term into these two definitions.
6
The growing awareness and protests about the personal data theft is too little and too late an effort to make the tech giants, Facebook or Google, accountable to what they have actually done to the individual freedom and privacy. For, any new regulations could only prevent such privacy violations for the future, but what about the harm already done? Nor could the personal data fed and programmed into the high tech machines be retrieved to the benefit of the real owners.
5
Mr. Mactaggart should be commended but no one has won. Had the initiative process continued, Californians would have chosen his reasonable and likely effective law or would have been given the legislative "counter offer" which delays the protections for no valid reasons, significantly weakens them, and exempts many multi-million dollar corporations, businesses, and individuals. The legislature bet he would accept a compromise and "leave the field of battle" and bought time for Google, Facebook and many others who continue to claim our personal private data belongs exclusively to the them because they aggressively and often deceptively worked to acquire it, demand it, traded it, warehoused it, sold it, rented it, shared it - they invested they might claim, in us. No Facebook for me ever, but Google has produced both free and paid products I use and help me, but they never got my consent to get, store, or use my data in any way like they have and continue to do so. My choices are to stop using all Google products or contact their paid arbitratior? So the first serious state-wide battle was engaged and a temporary truce is called. Given very few people have resources or time unlike General Mactaggart, we are left leaderless and given the size and resources of our opponents, unprotected. If there is a legal path to resurrect the initiative many Californians deserve their right to vote on it directly.
36
This is a fascinating story about data privacy, the tech industry, and the workings of our State legislature. Bravo to Alastair Mactaggart. I recently read Jaron Lanier's book "Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now." I joined Facebook just after the 2016 election to see for myself how it could be used to influence an election. I wish I hadn't. It is clear that social media outlets are desired and useful, but we really need options in which users are not the product. I quit using Google. I rarely logon to Facebook and may follow Jaron's advice about that as well. I will not establish accounts on any more "free" social media services, although I am afraid that it is really too late.
20
While I am happy for the win, how this happened angers me. An independently wealthy man, via his ability to fund a ballot measure, was able to force change through the system by holding holding the powers that be over a barrel. What does it say for the rest of us – able only to vote and write letters, to effect change? Kudos that he won, but something is seriously, seriously wrong with our government if pay to play (regardless of the methods used) is what it takes to protect the citizenry. It should not take a rich man’s pet project to keep us from being sold to the highest bidder.
78
@Jen
It would appear to me that signers of the petition have an actionable contract; in exchange for my signature the petition sponsor agrees to submit it for consideration by the state. Sue the bum and seek a class action designation. There are damages.
Mactaggart and team's story of personal privacy activism shows that involvement in politics can win the desired response.
My concern is with A.B. 375, which can be toyed with and changed until it goes into effect in 2020. Silicon Valley, Google, Facebook and beneficiaries of their data mining, with their powerful phalanxes of lobbyists, already weakened the bill before it's passage.
They are not going to sit on their hands and do nothing, because violating our right to privacy is what has made them so wealthy. They do not care about end user privacy. They have enormous dividends to distribute, plus, the power to influence elections. What Silicon Valley CEO wants to give up that corporate might and influence?
I think Mactaggart should have pursued his original referendum and had it placed on the ballot. It went a lot farther than A.B. 375 in giving end users control over their data, and, as Mactaggart said, it had teeth in it -- large fines for violating privacy laws.
As to how Facebook addressed Europe's new right to privacy laws here, they did nothing. They wrote that if we didn't like their terms and conditions, we could go elsewhere.
The thing is, there is no competitor to Facebook -- and they, with Google, leave not one byte of our personal information unsold, and do not leave one legislator untouched. They have too much influence. We have no control.
Mactaggart, back to the drawing board?
23
Snooping on users has been going on since personal computers first had sound. The first computer to offer built in sound was the NEXT computer created by Steve Jobs after he was tossed out of Apple by Scully. A friend and I had the idea that we could revolutionize the way radio advertisements were distributed. Instead of Fedexing tapes we could digitize the commercials and send them to radio stations on line. The problem was we couldn't get the engine built to transmit all that data. So we went to NEXT and Jobs to see if they could do it. They were intrigued and agreed to build the engine. They also told us there would be an additional benefit to using NEXT computers at the radio stations. They had built in a program, I think it was called Gonzilla, that could listen to what was going on in the room the computer was in. We'd be able to hear what our customers thought of our system. That was 1990.
Ultimately our effort stopped when it became clear we couldn't use phone lines to transmit that much data and would have to install high speed lines in every radio station in the country.
10
I have perhaps never read an article that showed so clearly how difficult it is to get anything accomplished in today’s world. It takes people like Mactaggart, with that level of concern, intelligence and persistence. He has my admiration, and my thanks. My compliments also to Nicholas Confessore, the reporter. An outstanding article.
71
@TE
The one thing you left out was money. He had the money that allowed him into the 'pay to play' system of government that we now seem to have. The average person, without that kind of financial wherewithal, has no chance of being heard.
I was devastated when I got to the part in the article that Mactaggert for all his accomplishments on this bill, caved and compromised. In the end, by 2020, this bill most likely will be unrecognizable in it's final amended form and certainly not something that will protect any of our privacy rights.
13
The other thing that is left out of the article is the FEMALE proponent of the initiative who did not have Mactaggart's or Arney's money or male privilege but who had the relevant experience and did much of the work to advance the initiative. Shame on the NYT for erasing her entirely from the story.
That level of concept and commitment?!? Ha! Try ‘money’.
I didn't expect Mactaggart to risk personal treasure for the public good and I respect and thank him for his accomplishment. But I can't help wonder how well compromised legislation, which is subject to further manipulation, will fare compared to the staggering potential of his initiative, which once enacted, would likely not have changed without passage of stricter federal regulations.
Look at Prop 13, California's love it or hate it cap on real estate taxes. It has not changed in 40 years and no one can argue, that while not perfect, it fixed once and for all, a critical element of housing affordability in a State that in the same 40 years hasn't solved any aspect of its housing crisis, no matter how dire. I can't help but feel that Mactaggart walked away from an unparalleled opportunity both for us and untold future generations.
17
I'd like to see a ban on all tracking of anyone's online activity. I cannot understand how this thing called "cookies" (why is it called that???) is legal. Why should Google or Facebook, or New York Times or anyone at all, be able to track my activity and know what other websites I visit, after I visit theirs? This makes no sense to allow anyone to do that. It's spying pure and simple, case closed end of story.
It just should never happen that I go to Amazon to browse for coffee machines, and then to to New York Times, and find that I'm being pitched ads for the same coffee machines I just looked at on Amazon. No, I don't want "relevant ads" that target my interests. I never click on ads on any website. If I want to buy something I do an intentional internet search to find it, I dont' wait until someone shoves an ad into my face.
111
@Oakbranch
What keeps the money flooding into the Facebook and Google coffers is that there are A WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE online who are susceptible to the AI-targeted pitch and are not intentional about their own purchasing behavior. If consumers were all like you (and me, I'm pleased to say), those companies would go bankrupt overnight.
11
@Oakbranch, cookies are not necessarily for tracking. Some, for instance, are what say you're a subscriber, or contain your login information for a site for which you chose to set up automatic login.
I don't mean to contradict anything you worry about. I agree with all that.
6
@Oakbranch
The great promise of cryptcurrency is that is could allow microtransactions to replace advertising as the financial medium of the internet. For example, you could give a website a small fraction of a penny in exchange for content, rather than relying on them to advertise to you.
I fully expect that, should we ever get close to this becoming a reality, Big Tech will kill off crytocurrencies with extreme prejudice.
There were some very brilliant, distant-horizon thinkers among the Founders when the country was formed. They were, among many things, diligently focused on setting up a system that protected individual liberties. Yet, it’s hard to imagine that even people as thoughtful as Thomas Jefferson, in their era, could conceive of something like social media or the internet. If they could, I like to think that they would give value or constitutional protections to something like an individual’s right to privacy. These are the same men that said soldiers couldn’t demand housing from you, that you had a right to a trial, and that you were protected by law from unwarranted searches and seizures. Doesn’t it seem entirely plausible to suggest that, if alive today, they would extend that idea of property and protections of personal space into the digital realm, especially since accessing the digital realm is less a choice these days than it is a necessity of everyday life?
28
@X
I think you're absolutely right, and I think it's not a stretch to assume that given a bit more time, we'll figure out how to extend property protections of the digital. However, the tricky bit, is that in the digital, even more so than in the physical, we get digitally intertwined from the get go, to the extent that most everything we do we actually do together with others: For example, who own's this digital conversation we are having right now, and who get's to decide how private or pubic it, and if and how someone get's to monetizes it? I think this is where the concept of private property doesn't scale well to the digital. The old dichotomies of private/public, or property/commons don't seem to hold water in this new realm. Perhaps we need new concepts more aligned with how most everything we produce these days is produced socially. For example: When a conversation is socially produced, like our right here, shouldn't we be making the decisions of how it's used? Extending that to a larger group, does that mean that we need to start building decision making processes into the medium itself? In other words, if people start actively defending their *collective" rights and have a collective means of making decisions about their joint information and interaction, all of a sudden, the scales start tipping back towards the people.
8
Internet's decline seems correlated to the rise of these two companies.
12
Congress will do nothing about this for the same reason they will do nothing about improving access to health care and education, protecting the environment, reducing income inequality or campaign finance reform (just to name a few). They need the support ($$$) of big business and big business does not want to be regulated.
26
Beware. Those DNA collecting companies, that you pay for your personal information related to family heritage, etc. are selling your DNA info to all kinds of private companies, including big pharma. So before you spit into the tube with a 100 plus dollar payment, think of who should be paying who?
18
@thomas
Actually, your DNA might already be in the law enforcement database, because genealogy tree companies have nothing better to do but give the feds your "ancestry." Law enforcement runs DNA matches based on who is in the database, no matter that you only wanted to see how much Irish you got in your blood. This is preposterous, trying to match DNA of a criminal against that of innocent customers!
3
@thomas
Nearly 20 years ago, I taught biology to a class of H.S.-age criminals who -- when their every-school-day ended -- had to report to their parole officers. Tough crowd, but they knew more about DNA than my honors classes, because I introduced a long and deliciously-detailed human genome section that far exceeded textbooks at the time, with these words: "Now we're going to learn about why you may want to make some life adjustments because deoxyribonucleic acid guarantees you'll never be a successful life of crime. Everywhere you go and everything you do, leaves your DNA behind. Your DNA can be matched from whatever is swabbed at a crime scene, and likely pinpoint even where you may be located, if a distant cousin you didn't know existed, ever had her DNA tested."
What's divulged from a cheek swab makes the issue of privacy on social media pages laughable. DNA testing "privacy" is the very extremity of an oxymoron.
3
Not unlike the Equifax fall out or the Panama Papers scandal, Facebook's maleficence has been quietly put to bed. If it involves extremely wealthy corporations or people with extraordinary power, you can be sure that it'll be business as usual. Nothing will change. Whatever became of any of these business' or individual's over reach and greed? Nothing. Absolutely nothing has happened to any of these involved.
Rich people ARE different from you and I. And don't forget that corporations are people too. Welcome to our new 21st century, masters of Oligarchy.
30
I harken back to when I could put my gloved hand on silicon dioxide before it was melted into a 2" diameter silicon crystal ingot.
A couple decades ago a famous VC challenged us in a Sand Hill Road pitch meeting, "Why wouldn't you sell heroin to high school students, as long as it's legal?"
We walked out moments later. "But you coulda been a unicorn!"
Many companies passed the yech factor long ago in their amoral pursuit of profits. "As long as it's legal," too often means that groups with a lot of money have bought the makers of laws. This won't be replicated in the US Congress.
9
"If people really knew what we had on them, the Google engineer said, they would flip out."
Well, yes, indeed. I propose people google everything like mad - indiscriminately - scramble their data collection and muddy the waters such that it becomes meaningless. Some genius should create an app, that randomly googles stuff in the background. If literally ALL of us are suspect or targeted in some way or other then it becomes useless. It loses it's value. They can't round us all up.
Essentially, "I am Spartacus!"
39
@Matthew: I run just such an app. Unfortunately, it appears that it's been "detected" and if it is run too fast, that is, it does too many random searches, my entire PC bogs down. And so much for "Net Neutrality."
2
That is a clever idea!
i was just thinking about that!
I admire Mr. Mactaggart. But aren't we kidding ourselves? Money, not democracy, not justice, and certainly not privacy rules Silicone Valley and the world.
Nice try, Alastair.
6
The terms, “Surveillance Capitalism” and “mining”, struck me. About the former, a flipped version can be surveillance socialism, which actually depicts the essence of socialism, when its governmental system is conventionally understood in accordance to the history. As for the latter, it reminds me of bitcoins, or all other crypto currencies. The data of social media users would be digged out or found as at-anytime-available-currencies or supplies to meet demands of any market. *** Surveillance socialism might come (though I am strongly against such a move), if high tech companies see the way to sustain their profits in whatever changes in the governmental body. In that case, all turmoils will go down solely onto the users’ level, on which local entities will most likely take actual practices to flatten the individualities of residents to be merely social units, by classifying them according to data in the mine. *** For the government and corporations along with fortune-holders (at a huge scale and monetary), the easiest would be to unitalize their subjects and consumers. This will be an undesirable outcome from what would have been digitally over-achieved. The real possibility for such a situation to come is positively low, unless the mined data start to take over the human life which should be free from surveillances of many kinds always.
1
Good on you, Mr. Mactaggart. Would you consider working on some form of federal bill? You have gained the expertise to talk with lawmakers on their home turf, and that is sorely needed for this kind of effort.
6
If I, as an individual citizen, is responsible and accountable for everything I say privately ans publicly, why are Google and Facebook and the whole lot of the "social media" mega-(profiting massively from our data) held to the same standard?
Firstly, what a benign phrase "social media"...perhaps that phrase should be replaced with something more accurate: "Unregulated Data Pirates" comes to mind.
Before conservatives start to throw a fit about regulating these companies much more rigorously, the groundwork was laid by one of their favorite decisions: Citizen's United. If corporate donations are equivalent to speech, then corporations should open to much more liability in terms of what is shared on their platforms.
No Mr. Zuckerberg, Facebook is not some invisible, neutral "platform". Humans make decisions at multiple points to determine what is allowable to post.
Imagine a world where all these companies are responsible and accountable for all the content presented...that's not radical, it's common sense.
18
@cyclist
If you watched Zuckerberg's testimony in front of congress, you would know that politicians from both parties grilled Zuckerberg, and that Republicans like Lindsay Graham of South Carolina were quick to point out that Facebook operates essentially as a monopoly, ie, the type of business that past Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt fought to break up.
2
What a Luddite adventure! If you are concerned about the data an organization collects, DONT USE THEM. It really is that simple. And what about my local deli that has a check in program? Or the supermarket that gives gas points based on dollars spent? Or the knowledge that my bank has about my spending habits? People were suspicious of the telephone at one time too.
4
@From Where I Sit The difference between then and now is the incredible computing power and "big data" technology that allows all of these seemingly unimportant items to be tied together into one stunningly accurate portrait of who you are.
I would not even pretend to know how to get totally "off the grid." Going to an unwired cabin deep in the woods would still be tracked by vehicle and face recognition these days.
5
@George Pay in cash, pay in person. Leave your phone at home or stashed in a frequency blocking bag and only use it for talking. No tweets or likes or photos of your lunch/pet/selfies. Skip the store/credit card/hotel/airline "frequency" programs. Don't use those personalized store coupons. That's about it. Mail is tracked, license plates scanned, locations tracked. The best we can do is make our activities harder to follow.
While I applaud the intentions of Mactaggart ballot initiative, I would have never voted for it. Our ballot initiative process, rather than simply making laws, creates direct amendments to our state charter that are almost impossible to overturn. Prop 13 is the most famous example, but there are many others.
3
Prop 13 is a great example of what’s wrong with ballot initiatives. It gutted California schools, which were among the nation’s best before Prop 13 and are now among the very worst. And none of the candidates for Governor will even discuss reforming it.
1
I disagree with you. The direct ballot process, if done right. lessens the financial corruption that takes place with lobbyists get together with politicians.
1
This is an impressively well written and researched article.
The most evil people in history had self-regulated power. Therefore, morality must step into the equation when it comes to individual rights vs corporate/government interests in the realm of power. In my understanding, this must stem from a humility in knowing that humanity, even powerful humanity is subordinate to Someone Greater, and act as such. (Unlike past theocracies which didn't follow their own core teachings, much like modern government finds it difficult to follow core constitutional principles in the most basic means of empowering citizens - trusting them with freedom and the means to defend it)
11
Silicon Valley is the cesspool for the new "robber barons" and "malefactors of great wealth" in the new "gilded age". The fact that their predatory behavior is legal results from lobbyist buying legislative and executive compliance and subordination. Law and politics frequently run behind and beneath science and technology innovations.
Their businesses need to be busted up and regulated before it is too late. And they need to be fined and imprisoned for their corrupt and criminal acts and intent by enactment of applicable laws and regulations.
32
Thank you Mr. Mactaggart.
32
Great article.
Its really funny when you want to cut and paste this article's URL to send someone else there is a bunch of meta data attached to the URL to track how you landed on the article. This is what I had on mine
" : ?WT.nav=bottom-well&action=click&hpw&module=well-region&pgtype=Homepage®ion=bottom-well&rref=technology"
And when I opened the javascript console to see the type of data that was captured by NYTimes as I was reading this article its mind boggling. And I am a paid subscriber. If I am a paid subscriber should the website be collecting so much information about me?
125
@Bollocks Thank you for informing us about this.
I'm not surprised. I have as a paid online subscriber, why do I get ads? Eventually my question reached a high enough level to merit a response. Net of answer: newspapers have always depended on advertising. I thought that the leading newspaper (and I'd claim the best in the US even when the market was growing) and likely one of the top in the world (I don't have the language or cultural skills to say) would be able to understand that basic tenant of mobile apps. Unfortunately, the business is somehow isolated from cultural trends and norms. They may not know the effectiveness of ad blocker software plus stringent advertizing limits set in Google for Android users. When an ad sneaks into their app it's always small and something dubious like local, "made for TV ads only" junk. Now is the time NYT; if only reduced price ads for non-profit journalism schools and scholarships I'd support keeping them.
Please read my book, Black Ops Advertising. (Here is The NY Times review: Good at Skipping Ads? No, You’re Not https://nyti.ms/2g03l1K?smid=nytcore-ios-share)
Many of us have been writing and researching this for years. See, for example, the work of Joe Turow, Julia Angwin and Siva Vaidhyanathan, among others.
This is a major consumer concern.
19
Anything that is free is ultimately not worth anything.........G Kotwal. I always wondered how exactly Facebook (FB) and Google (GOO) developed a lucrative revenue stream to sustain a high stock price. When FB became public I bought nano stock in FB and I had previously bought pico stock in GOO for my retirement portfolio that was hit hard by the Bush recession. I never had the slightest idea that data mining was the source of revenue for these giants.
My wise father who turns 99 next Sunday and has never in his life time used a laptop, a cell phone or internet had shared his gut feeling and warned me 5 years not to share any private information or images of him. At that time he would read newspapers and talk to couple of his friends as most of his friends were long gone.
I loved the user friendly FB and GOO (even though I disliked GOO garbage fake news) but while I wondered more in recent years about their business model for generating revenues, it never occurred to me that they were mining lucrative personal data and I am glad some one else was proactive in challenging these mega giants. Thank you Alastair Mactaggart for you privacy activism. I would have never figured out their revenue source even though I made sure that I used the privacy settings to keep my private information restricted to my friend circle.
I would like to tell FB and GOO you want to earn honest mega bucks then just ask me to pay a reasonable fee for service. Will 23andMe keep my DNA info private?
16
Pritzker’s spokesman is clearly full of it.
1
interesting article and makes me glad I stopped participating in Facebook. However, I noticed language I see all over the NYT, which in my mind belongs in the opinion pages and not in a news article and why I lose respect for the paper.
The language characterizes Obama as a "pragmatic liberal" selling a "benevolent globalism" and Trump as a "strident nationalist"
"stoking racial panic" and who has "set out to demolish the American-led world order." Whatever the author believes, this belongs in an opinion piece.
13
If you’re still using Facebook you’re either not paying attention or you don’t care about privacy. Same with Google vs DuckDuckGo (https://duckduckgo.com)
16
Hope I’m not the only one who thought it funny someone whose name is “Hoofnagle” believes Alastair Mactaggart to sound improbable.
34
Mr Smith goes to Washington is now mr mctaggert goes to Sacramento. Impressive but scary.
8
I may be in a minority here, but if someone can make money out of knowing that I like MG Midgets and Cab Calloway music, then more power to them.
1
Exactly. And what about the affinity cards we all have with everyone from Lowe’s to the local deli? Heck, Amazon already has a huge list of everything I’ve bought there since 2005.
3
"“I thought it was a joke at first, to be contacted by someone named ‘Alastair Mactaggart,’ ”
said someone named Hoofnagle
53
@LdV That is exactly what I thought reading that sentence.
2
What are the odd for TWO people with uncommon names to meet?
2
I run analytics and ad blockers, and The New York Times is attempting to report to about 30 sites right now as I read this article and post this comment.
88
@Just Live Well
61 at my end.
I must be famous.
1
it seems like Facebook and Google are the new Chinese government when it comes to surveillance.
19
@M
And we invited them into our homes and lives ourselves!
1
Excellent article, except that it understates the magnitude of the problem. Silicone Valley knows more about us than we know about ourselves, and is using AI not only to predict and sell to our behaviors, but to manage us.
This is not Phillip K Dick paranoia, it is just life in America today. Friends, as I have said here before, your data is YOUR DATA. They have it because they took it, not because it is theirs. Let's take it back.
They say they use it for you, eg. targeted ads and newsfeeds. They also use it against you, eg. fake news campaigns and engineering fake likes on social media. Plus Russian hackers.
Freedom isn't free, and neither is Facebook or Google.
135
well said!
What do you mean by "Let's take it back?" Once they have it, you have lost control over it. They can invite you to delete your account but - pardon my cynicism - how do you know they haven't already cloned their entire database? I am fully assuming that they have.
The toothpaste is out of the tube. What sick Zack et al are engaged in now is placating the public, nothing more.
1
Mactaggart & his team are heroes, in the sense that they went out of their way to pursue a goal that was good for the public, that didn't just uniquely benefit them. It takes a capitalist to have the resources to pursue heroics like this. Any capitalist with a conscience realizes how truly out of control capitalism has become in 21st century America.
32
It seems there is still hope for the democratic process, at least, if you have money. Let us hope the "chances for mischief " don't win out.
2
The way to fix the privacy conundrum exists, though it is still in it's infancy. It is called the "blockchain". The blockchain would allow a secure and unalterable repository of personal data which would be under the complete control of each user. Using a blockchain, every movement, use or even touch of one's data would be recorded, and no third party would be able to tell who the user actually was ... they would only have access to the characteristics they required. This would stop the "third party cross-referencing" of data which the article talks about. It would especially stop govt. (NSA, etc.) from doing unlawful things, and it would force the use of search warrants (which would also be recorded).
All sounds "pie in the sky", doesn't it? Nevertheless, the proof that a blockchain would work is available in plain sight. After almost a decade, the bitcoin blockchain ITSELF has never been hacked. Yes - bitcoin exchanges have been hacked, but bitcoin itself goes on. As I write this, a bitcoin is worth ~ $6200. If the blockchain was hacked, that would not be true...
5
Silicon Valley has a transistor for a Father
and Greed as a Mother.
It is a business.
And like all businesses -
it wants to make more money
this year than it made last year.
Never forget
that it is all about becoming
richer and richer
and
richer.
6
@John Brown
After World War II there was a strong belief
that with the United Nations and a clear understanding how awful War was that Wars were a thing of the past.
A New Age had broken open and mankind was just
going to endlessly prosper.
There are younger folks who really believe that
Computers, the Internet and AI tacked onto
Globalisation is going to create ( another ) New Age.
With only two recommendation to my above comment
I can see, sadly, how many people don't realise how
greed is interwoven into the human heart and no amount of technology will ever eradicate it.
Why should Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg be worth
hundreds of Billions of dollars when other people
don't have five dollars to their names, when others are homeless, others are starving, others are refugees ?
[Yes, their companies make donations, but why so much private wealth ? ]
And why do they have so many lobbyists -
Google that means you - ?
We all suffer from Original sin and no Computer Chip
or AI program will ever wash its effects away.
1
We consumers still have to play whack-a-mole one by one figuring out who has our data, name included, and is selling it or swapping it. But this is a start.
9
A humorous aside---how can someone named Hoofnagle look askance at being contacted by someone named Mactaggart? I am one of the world's few Facebook holdouts, and gladder every day, but, like everyone else, I haven't escaped Google.
4
After all of the maneuvering behind the scenes to undermine Mactaggert and Soltani, by even supposed allies, I think if I had been them, I would have gone ahead with the ballot issue.
When companies are so desperate as not to care about their responsibilities to their subscribers, they deserve to be stopped by the citizens of California and the rest of the Country.
I applaud both of these gentlemen for doing the right thing.
And shame on the ACLU, Common Sense for Kids and all the rest who withdrew their support, as well as the crummy behind the scenes colluding by the Tech companies. Their stocks deserve to crash. And those Democrats in the California State Legislature sound as if they were all trained by the Congressional Republicans in the US Congress.
22
In a recent letter to this outlet, the ACLU was excoriated by Ralph Nader for defending the false and unconstitutional extension of rights intended for real humans (natural persons) to corporations. Apparently as we suspected all along Federalist Society trained judges do not believe in "original intent" unless their logic is twisted to support free speech for misrepresenting companies, doctrinaire corporations (Hobby Lobby et al) and right wing megafunders (Citizens United extending dubious Buckley V Valeo).The founders thought only about a few limited federal "corporations" and never considered the states would charter such monsters independently - an unfortunate development spawne by early regulatory and liability efforts. Congress should create more strict national corporate standards states must comply with, but first we will need CPR to save EPA, State, Education, Justice, to simply survive. Then amend out the electoral college, Jerrymandering, and set a maximum single-court tenure of 10-years for all Federal judges - the could rotate to a different court or retire. Lifetime appointments are now poisonous with McConnell "all in" to keep the court right and white and a clear understanding of how federal courts have been the single biggest impedament to progressive causes. Thus most reactionary branch requires a different approach. Keeping one's judicial "head down" by never exerting new interpretations so as to be "elegible for promotion" has been a thing since Bork.
Terrific article. Now can you write one about what these corporations are collecting on even our youngest children in schools? Not just their test scores, but also their social-emotional state? For whose use—future employers, law enforcement? And with whose permission...our kindergarteners?
5
The sad, scary thing about the Internet Behemoths is their invasiveness. The Facebook logo – that nondescript "f" at the top of the article that's on nearly every webpage – is tracking your every move. If you're logged into Facebook, each site with that little "f" is tracking what you're looking at and for how long and sending data back to FB, enriching their stores and Zuckerberg's wallet. If you're not paying for it, you are the product.
Invariably, on any article about data privacy, the naysayers will sniff that if you don't want your data to be misused, don't put it online. By now we can agree that data collection is so pervasive and all encompassing that it would be impossible not to be online in some way. Everyone uses Google. And even if you eschew social media, Facebook and Twitter have live streaming video platforms in which users can record you and put you online without your consent. Remember when we had to sign waivers to be on TV? In this brave new world, that concept is antiquated. With the oncoming wave of the Internet of Things, soon your refrigerator, your thermostat, your TV will track you too.
The solution is more regulation. Laissez-faire policies foster an environment in which private enterprise runs amok. And while Mactaggart's efforts are commendable, it's scary that it takes wealth to change the law. We the people need to stand for our rights, to ensure that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the Earth.
15
This is fascinating stuff, but 5x more boilerplate than is needed.
You need a summary version.
4
ECHELON/“Five Eyes” was launched in the 1960’s (or so we are led to believe). The movie ‘Swordfish’ came out in 2001. DARPA is surprisingly forthcoming with the kinds of projects that they’re working on at any given point...
https://www.darpa.mil/
What part of “free” includes an EULA and the voluntary submission of nearly everything which might otherwise be private? Caveat emptor.
3
God bless you, Alastair Mactaggart! There are hundreds of millions of people all over the world who may never know your name, nor your efforts on their behalf, to continue using a technology to stay connected while the progenitors of same were essentially pulling the rug out from their client-users and their own great ideas. Well, they're busy counting the haul of money, and after all, that's the most important thing, isn't it? Well ... not to most of those hundreds of millions (maybe a few billion?) of Google and Facebook folks, of course, and while thanking Alastair Mactaggart on their behalf is both presumptuous and ridiculous, I'm doing it anyway.
Thank you, Mr. MacTaggart! You're a prince. May your friends and family be as good to you as you have been to countless friends and families all over the globe: those who value one another, staying in touch, and sharing their lives. You are deserving of recognition and thanks for your humanitarian work: for in truth, that's just what it is.
5
I recently got an email from the New York Times, letting me know that as a subscriber to the digital version, the site has been upgraded to let me see more of the kind of stories I seem to 'like'.
In other words, the NYT has decided to give me a bespoke version of the news.
I hope it goes without saying that I find this objectionable, but if it doesn't, I do.
How is this new approach to news dissemination any different from the Facebook, Google et al, selling information about my tastes, attitudes, likes and dislikes to third parties, who then advertise their products to me?
64
This is an excellent question. How do we reconcile the fact that the Times both provides us with stories exposing this behavior while at the same time engaging in this same behavior it is criticizing? Is the Times ultimately a conglomeration of reporters with a conscience seeking to protect humanity or an impersonal for-profit entity? The fact is that the day the Times stops making money is the day it dies, no matter how many good people are working there. So you do the math.
9
@Heather Bathon, I didn't notice such an e-mail from the Times, but I am alarmed by the thought that they would give me anything but their normal selection of news (already slanted by their judgement of importance, as is inevitable), thereby excluding me from -- I don't know what.
I do have other sources of news, but I don't want any of them to give me what they think I want. That way lies madness!
7
I agree. I subscribe to the NYT for the NYT, not for their suggestions as to what other sites I might like. Offensive.
Fascinating analysis of political dynamics, yet I am sure Facebook and Google are working overtime to to block the next Alastair Mactaggart. Just before I read this article, I had tried to opt out of a default data sharing agreement when I registered for an academic conference in California. When I followed the opt-out link, I wound up instead on a data collection page. In exchange for opting out of the conference data sharing agreement, the event management company wanted all my relevant personal data, information the conference had just collected. I couldn't opt out without giving it to them again. Why? This battle is just beginning
15
"While writing of freedom in his revolutionary pamphlet The American Crisis, Thomas Paine reminded his readers 'What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.' He continued, 'Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its good; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.'”
"Both the means and the content of communications in a free society have consequences for the preservation of that freedom. The ads bought on Facebook as part of the Russian misinformation campaign every intelligence agency agrees took place during the 2016 campaign are said to have cost only around $100,000. Services that rely solely on advertising for their revenue will inevitably be used for such purposes again. Indeed, they probably already are. If how we communicate with friends, family, and with our fellow citizens isn’t worth a few dollars a month to ensure our social networks are serving us instead of inadvertently undermining our democratic institutions or advancing other nefarious agendas, then we should be asking ourselves why we’re wasting so much time on them in the first place." ~ Social Media Shouldn't Be Free: If users really want to be the client instead of the product they should be willing to pay for the privilege
https://medium.com/the-sensible-soapbox/social-media-shouldnt-be-free-d4...
11
@Craig Axford The 'product' was never asked whether or not it would prefer paying a few dollars for the privilege of being the client. And, of course, the reason for this neglect was that Zuckerberg realized that if it ain't free, most people, even those who can afford it, will opt out.
3
@Craig Axford: if a service is "Free".... you can be sure that YOU are the product.
1
I'll be brief. This was a terrific piece of reporting.
5
Great story: this is the real art of the deal, competing interests, horsetrade, compromise, everybody gets something, nobody gets everything. Congratulations to McTaggert and crew, well played!
2
You think privacy is under attack now, wait until autonomous vehicles are forced upon us.
Facebook Google Twitter et al should be governed as a public square NOT a publisher which is what they have been advocating.
Ultimately it's not about fewer crashes or customizing your experience. For both of these scams it's about control.
11
This is a big reason I'm not in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, don't use Gmail and do all my browsing through a VPN which hides my location and IP.
3
Politics, politicians and corporations loathe to follow the golden rule are nauseating.
Mactaggert has been snookered by being persuaded to leave it to the politicians. Democracy by the people and for the people has been replaced by Democracy for whoever has the most money.
6
While they may have won this battle, we will certainly have not won and will not win this war.
You can bet this law will be watered down to be unrecognizable when it takes effect in 2020.
11
How come all those advertisers tracking don't seem to realize that I NEVER respond to their ads?
2
THIS is the kind of NYT investigative reporting that I’ve been missing! The research, the writing and the tone are what we loved about this paper in the past. I read every darn word of this very long article and will share it with my friends who have given up on the Times.
24
What a wonderful explanation of why the needs of the public are rarely enacted into law. All it takes to get Congress and legislatures around the country to act as a "government of, by, and for the people" is money. Until we reform campaign finance, things in the "swamp" will only get worse.
Trump said he would "drain the swamp". Hahahahaha!
11
Extremely disturbing (but not surprising) how invasive, creepy, and detailed this data collection has become.
As an aside, I've never read those "agreements" you have to make to use an app. I've always assumed I've promised to sell my children to Zuckerberg or Tim Cook or Sergey Brin at any price they name ...
1
So a little different but I have been blocked for years by the Amazon algorithims as a fraud suspect. The coding they use to identify is necessary but the emails are very viscous and denigrating and state that they know who I am and to never again to try and register with another credit card under my name because they knew who I was independendent of the credit card company I would choose to register. I have always maintained a near perfect credit score and have a 7 digit bank account. There are user sites I have encountered of similar people that have also been permanently blocked by the Amazon fraud coding. Beware the power we give to these digital gods.
6
@Greg: uh, the problem isn't Amazon. The problem is an American in Mexico with a 7 digit bank account. I'd be suspicious too!
Personal information is personal property.
You use it, you bought it. Anything less, is a dodge.
Information doesn't 'want to be free', that's just what companies want.
Stop waiting for ethical behavior from entities motivated only by profit.
I'm still waiting for a digital bill of rights.
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Perhaps I am naive but I don't understand how facial recognition apps, or we site tracking negatively affects me.
Would a privacy advocate please explain why I should care that Google knows what bus I take to work or whether I buy Preparation H?
Not trying to be snarky I just honestly don't understand what all the fuss is about.
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@Dave It's about control and individual choice. It's knowledge about you being manipulated to the economic betterment of other parties. It's about the loss of the market by those who do not participate for whatever reason, creating tiered opportunity, and locking out competition. Who should make decisions for you?
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Well. I came here to say something about the possible chilling effect of all this private data collection,on dissent and on free speech in general.There were exactly zero comments posted.I think...that’s all I have to say on the subject.(While I slowly typed this on my phone,272...279 comments have appeared.Whew!)
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Private investigator Steve Rambam has long delivered compelling lectures on privacy, anonymity and the ability to access raw data in the age of Big Tech. Anyone can view his presentations on YouTube.
I feel like he really undercut his own efforts in the last paragraph (or maybe the author wanted to end it on a high note): the system didn't work because it wanted to, it was forced to produce something because their mistakes got too big for regular people to ignore, was the product of a split between millionaires, and the state legislature cowardly accepted whatever their donors negotiated. No slow clap from me.
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Bravissimo!! to Confessore for putting this worrisome issue under the street lights so more people can see it. And specially to Mactaggart for fighting this private eye conduct by Google and others. Lately I bought a Xiaomi phone using Android One as its operating system without paying attention that automatically use Google applications. Since then I feel that not a private detective is following my steps but instead is sitting in my pocket. The system knows exactly in real time what I am doing and where. TERRIBLE!!!
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Independent of the subject concerns -- data collection/use of collected data -- the article's elucidation of the 'making' of law & policy as a 'processing' of polluted-sausage ingredients makes me feel nearly as ill as I would if I ate some rancid 'mystery meat.'
It ain't what trump rants about, but there truly is a "deep [and ugly] state" … one that 'guarantees' the ascension and protection of "the 1%" [or 'better' still] and the relegation [or subjugation] of the 'lesser' 10% and 20% and 30% and 40% and 50% [and 'on,' in respective measure] to the place … by these machinations and this evil … 'they' are put.
Shake or stir ... add as oval-office occupant the embarrassment of a 'man' now in its place … and ... What?
"God" only knows.
Thanks, I just turned off facial recognition on my IPhone. I did a search on google yesterday for an item for a client's project. I opened up the digital version of the NYT this morning and was flooded with banner ads for like items as well as several emails. Maybe we need a day of protest where everyone stays off the internet and their cell phones.
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@Steve
I think that might be one of the keys to making these corporations understand that they are not all powerful. Simply cut off the flow of data (and money) for a bit. Our money is what makes this whole thing flow. Might not seem like it, but as the old saying goes--follow the money--and then we'll begin to understand the power we can have if we act as one unified force.
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@Steve
"Maybe we need a day of protest where everyone stays off the internet and their cell phones."
That would be amazing! Now let's get on FB and make it happen. :)
@Steve: hahahahaha
Thats funny.
Everyone I know would literally rather DIE than give up 10 minutes on their smartphones.
Thank you for letting me know how pervasive the surveillance is of me by private corporations.
Mactaggart is a modern day hero. He fought for what is right and put his resources behind his belief for a better society. What a fight he had with the powers arrayed against him.
We need more citizens like him in every state.
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excellent article! while i know that there are ways to protect oneself in the digital age, I would have appreciated a link to how to do that effectively re: Google and Facebook, in this article.
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Perhaps I missed it in the article, but it seems to be important what restrictions there are on selling consumer data. Just on the raw data? Or on any queries which use the data? That is, if the restriction of selling is only on the raw data, but the companies can sell analyses that use the data, then this law will just make Google and Facebook more powerful. Everyone will send their demands to Google and Facebook, who will mine their data, and then sell the answers back.
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Facebook's profits were $7.3 billion in the last quarter of 2017 — "How was a political data firm with links to Trump’s 2016 campaign harvest private information from more than (87) million Facebook profiles without the social network’s alerting users?" Facebook's answer deny deny deny, threaten the London paper if they published the truth, and suspend accounts of Cambridge Analytica, Mr. Kogan, and Mr. Wylie who "fessed up".
https://www.varsity.co.uk/news/15192
How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-trump...?
Data Firm Tied to Trump Campaign Talked Business With Russians
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-russi...?
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@Ann-"Facebook makes an average of $14.34 per user in the United States up from $9.30 a year ago. Much of this growth comes from the fact that advertisers not only have an enormous audience in Facebook but an audience they can slice into the tranches they hope to reach." CA boasted on its website, it had 500 data points on 230 million Americans; apparently sucking up this info is not hard to do--and for most of us our profiles are already out there being mined by the more than 200 companies FB and others have sold our data to.
Cambridge Analytica and the Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/cambridge-analytica-facebook-...?
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Mactaggart and team's story of personal privacy activism shows that involvement in politics can win the desired response.
My concern is with A.B. 375, which can be toyed with and changed until it goes into effect in 2020. Silicon Valley, Google, Facebook and beneficiaries of their data mining, with their powerful phalanxes of lobbyists, already weakened the bill before it's passage.
They are not going to sit on their hands and do nothing until 2020, because violating our right to privacy is what has made them so wealthy. They now have enormous dividends to distribute, plus, the power to influence elections. What Silicon Valley CEO wants to give up that corporate might and influence?
I think Mactaggart should have pursued his original referendum and had it placed on the ballot. It went a lot farther than A.B. 375 in giving end users control over their data, and, as Mactaggart said, it had teeth in it -- large fines for violating privacy laws.
As to how Facebook addressed Europe's new right to privacy laws here, they did nothing. They added a phrase stating that if we didn't like their terms and conditions, we could go elsewhere.
The thing is, there is no competitor to Facebook -- and they, with Google, leave not one byte of our personal information unsold, and do not leave one legislator untouched. They have too much influence and control. End users have none.
Mactaggsrt, back to the drawing board?
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Facebook is becoming a deity. It has created a universe that for many people is more real than the physical world. It is on track to becoming all knowing. Besides what is mentioned in this article, CreditKarma now automatically sends people’s credit scores to Facebook (with no opting out) after anyone checks their credit score on their site.
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It's more than a little ironic that IBM, the monolithic menace in the iconic Apple "1984" advertisement, is the one company that seldom gets mentioned in the privacy discussion.
This piece is thorough and provocative. I believe that The Times could do an equivalent piece on Google and the educational complex. While attention over decades has been focused on Eisenhower's prescient warning on the military/industrial complex, he also warned in his Farewell Address of the research/educational complex. Google has used interlocking board memberships and substantial donations to become a de facto tech standard in education, even as Apple has tried to establish its own power base. While hardware vendors have done this for decades and software vendors have tried to follow in their path, the data vendors have an obvious incentive to take this game to a new and higher level.
Of course, if we continue on our course of income and wealth inequality, there'll be no buyers for Facebook's and Google's marketing partners/customers...who will have been hoisted on their own data-driven petard.
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Great article NYT. We need a lot more media attention and investigation into use and abuse of consumer data, and consumer privacy protections. It really is scary thinking about how much data has been gathered on us and how it could be used in the future, if we don't regulate now.
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The US needs to pass legislation preventing these companies from invading our privacy and selling our details to others. The EU fought that battle and won, and also passed legislation allowing citizens to delete all their personal data off of Google. The Google gurus and Mark Zuckerburg may be liberal, but they are not friends to those who believe in basic civil rights.
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They are in NO way "liberal", save maybe Sergey Brin. Zuck wholesaled Facebook's useds[sic] to C'Analytica; this was no "breach". Bezos is hunting for which area will give him the biggest corporate-welfare haul for plopping down an office complex. Apple happily outsources to China and grovels at them so their centralized App Store is also xi-friendly. Microsoft still is and acts like a convicted monopolist. Google...well, Google+; no further comment needed.
If these marketing-NOT-"tech"ies are liberals, I'd hate to see the Valley's reactionaries. "covfefe" lackey and Gawker-killer Peter Thiel should be a cautionary tale, not an idol!
3
That statement is true only if we view privacy as a civil right. I, in most instances that I can think of, do believe it should be. It’s time to start framing rational arguments to support this idea — privacy as a civil right.
2
An uplifting story for advocates of privacy but the future still looks uncertain in an the Dark Age of Trump. Keeping my hopes high and fingers crossed.
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@Rodrian Roadeye Did you even read this? Penny Pritzker, Obama's commerce secretary, was totally on board with anything and everything Silicon Valley could cook up. Oh, and her dilettante brother, JB Pritzker, whose net worth is currently $3.4 billion (!), is running for Illinois governor. His only qualification seems to be that he has the tallest pile of money. Buckle up, fellow citizens of Illinois.
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@Sundevilpeg
Yes I read this. What's your point? Mine was that with Trump everything can change for the worst. He caters to business.
@Sundevilpeg: the left goes ballistic over the very wealthy DeVos family and their interference in public education. But are curiously silent over how OBAMA hired PENNY PRITZKER, who is one of the richest people in the world! as COMMERCE secretary! Two different standards -- lefty libs are HYPOCRITES!
I thought something was amiss when the pricing I saw on Amazon.com for several identical items were different on my computer versus someone else's tablet or phone.
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A compelling story. I found the illumination of the players, competing interests, hidden financing, unexpected political positions at least as compared to public statements, fascinating. I work in the area of personal data ethics and have a strange interest in industries that collect and consume such data in ecosystems with almost impossibly complex sets of stakeholders. Like credit and risk analysis. We talk of the importance of transparency in data flows and the logic of algorithms but this article inspires the thought that if you really want to know what's behind those curtains, find a process such as California ballot initiatives to expose it all.
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What a fortuitous moment. We just discovered so many misrepresentations on Google reviews when it comes to reviews of doctors. Most of the reviews are negative because something patient feels entitled but what patients feels is appropriate is a bad practice of medicine. Doctors can not tell their side of the story because of privacy laws.
Small businesses are often targeted by companies like Yelp. The modus operandi is create a Yelp/Google profile without consent of business and then use it for defamation.
Small businesses can not sue Google because DMCA does not allow TM infringement as cause for action.
Defamation tort too is new. But we will soon get there as more and more people discover the malice of these giants in shielding any action on defamation by saying they do not own the content.
We need a change to the DMCA to allow TM infringement sufficient to take down the profiles.
Businesses have something to protect. Google is resorting to very deceptive practices. We need a solution and it must come from outside the valley.
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@Dr Arora
I agree. It is insane that a patient can complain about waiting for 15 minutes for a doctor who has fought through a minimum of 8 years of college education and tuition debt, and the doctor has no response opportunities; Small businesses as well endure and awful unfair comments with no platform to respond. The review practices have been awful and mean to professionals and businesses.
25
When doctor's offices make patients sign a form that they have to pay up if late to their appointment, then I as the patient have every right to complain about ROUTINELY being seen 20 minutes late, with no explanation let alone apology. I had a podiatrist who kept me waiting 30 minutes past the first appointment of the day while he openly schmoozed with drug reps. So, no, don't tell us there was an "emergency." More like overbooking to squeeze every dollar out of the day, with an attitude that only the doctor's time is valuable.
49
Years ago, when drs. saw patients only 8-5 on weekdays -- the same hours I worked -- and I worked hourly and had no sick leave or insurance, after I'd been kept waiting a half-hour (with no explanation), I told the office that, the next time it happened, I'd be deducting my wasted time from the bill. It never happened again.
11
We really need a better vocabulary for talking about the issues. To speak of "privacy," allows the public to be misled into thinking that it's primarily a question of whether or not they care if a stranger knows when they buy or read something. It has been easy for the tech companies to mislead along precisely those lines ("if you're ashamed of what you're doing, you shouldn't be doing it"). They have even tried, with some success, to convince people that surrendering control of their data empowers them (because it allows companies to tailor their experience to their needs or wants).
Technology in its current form and uses is blurring the boundaries between prediction and control, between experience and marketing, between desire and reality. We have seen this most clearly in the realm of news and information, where many people now live wholly within an information environment designed to affirm their prejudices and pull their emotional triggers--and which is often completely false. Businesses are organizing our consumption of other products in the same way, turning the reality we experience into a manipulation. The question is less about privacy than about freedom: do we want to live in a shared reality, or in individually tailored advertisements?
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@Ironbob
To be fair, most people who bothered to check during Facebook's infancy realized that all data entered for a person became public for use by Facebook as the company wished. Once I figured that out, I tried to close my account. Took me more than a year to remove everything of the few entries I made. They were persistent in keeping my data and not allowing me to close and erase the account.
15
@Martin Privacy is notoriously hard to articulate in its *essence.* Arthur Miller wrote a book about it in 1972 and said as much. Brandeis before him. Privacy wasn't really even mentioned in the constitution.
A widely cited academic paper called "'I've Got Nothing to Hide' And Other Misunderstandings of Privacy" published in 2007 gets much closer. Instead of defining privacy's essence, it defines a lean four-point framework of the harms that result from data misuse. Leaving it up to an individual to prove harm is problematic because privacy gives an internal dimension to society that benefits all. But some harms are done to the individual - such as "Aggregation" "any one data point is harmless. But many data points gathered together become much more telling about a person." I highly recommend the paper.
16
@Bob Hawk Facebook puts up all kinds of obstacles to prevent accountholders from deleting accounts.
1
Great article and reporting. I have questions that may be addressed in subsequent pieces:
How much of the NSA intelligence that Snowden brought to public light is gathered and shared by Google and Facebook?
If tax dollars are funding Google and Facebook information gathering for the NSA, then does that present a conflict of interest for Google and Facebook to spend tax dollars earned by work for the government on lobbying and election activities to prevent regulating their gathering and use of that information?
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@Marion Great Questions!
2