The Internet Giants Oppose Surveillance -- but Only When the Government Does it

[Commentary] Eight prominent Internet technology companies unveiled an open letter calling for reforms to the government surveillance programs revealed by Edward Snowden. “The balance in many countries has tipped too far in favor of the state and away from the rights of the individual -- rights that are enshrined in our constitution,” reads the letter, published on a website that lays out five principles for reform, including greater oversight and transparency, as well as an end to bulk data collection. This is the first time that the tech giants -- including Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter and Apple -- have made a joint political statement, and the move is well-timed: early in 2014 Congress will weigh competing legislation with the potential to roll-back some of the National Security Agency’s overreach, or enshrine data collection programs in law. But nowhere in their calls for reform do the IT companies address the privacy implications of selling troves of personal information collected from millions of Americans to online advertisers.

“The accumulation of corporate power in terms of having these very powerful dossiers of every individual, their networks and locations, gives them tremendous influence over our lives. These corporations have agendas as well,” said Jeffrey Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a consumer privacy advocacy group. The national security apparatus is deeply entangled with Silicon Valley, as the Snowden revelations have illustrated. In early December, The Washington Post reported that the NSA is “piggybacking” on the tracking tools that allow advertisers to follow and target users, “using ‘cookies’ and location data to pinpoint targets for government hacking and to bolster surveillance.” While the open letter pays lip service to civil liberties, the real concern it expresses isn’t for the rights of the people per se, but for consumer confidence -- read, the companies’ bottom line. One analyst predicts that Internet companies will lose as much at $180 billion by 2016 because of the damage done to their reputations by the leaks. That message may have more resonance with lawmakers than concerns about individual rights.