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  2. April 2017

April 2017

The uproar over Unroll.me selling user data to Uber shows most people don't understand ad-based business models

[Commentary] This week saw a furor surrounding Unroll.me, a service that offers to unsubscribe users from unwanted e-mails, but which apparently sold user data to Uber in the past in a way that wasn’t transparent to users. CEO Jojo Hedaya said it was “heartbreaking” to learn that some customers didn’t understand how the company monetizes its free service. The reaction to the revelations was predictable: Some decried all ad-based business models, using cliches like, “if you’re not paying, you’re the product,” while others said users were naive for imagining a free service wasn’t monetizing their data in some way. Every time I see this happen, I wish we could get beyond the simplistic painting of all ad-based services with the same brush, and have a more nuanced conversation about ad-based business models.

[Jan Dawson is founder and chief analyst at Jackdaw]

Google Data Privacy Fight Hinges on Cloud Storage Tech

An order that Alphabet's Google turn over customer data stored overseas relied more on the specific storage technology at play than on an outdated federal e-mail privacy law. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler of the US District Court for the Northern District of California ruled April 19 that Google must turn over customer data stored overseas subject to a valid search warrant issued in June 2016 under the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2701. The ruling may not offer real clarity sought by companies that store large amounts of data in the cloud, such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon.com, on whether they must comply with government demands for the release of consumer data stored outside the US. But it does offer some insight into how courts may parse the technological issues surrounding the storage of data and identification of the consumers tied to that data by focusing on the ability of the company to readily identify the citizenship of a particular user.

Searching for News: The Flint water crisis

During the long saga of the water crisis in Flint, Michigan – an ongoing, multilayered disaster that exposed about 100,000 residents to harmful contaminants and lead and left them even as of early 2017 advised to drink filtered or bottled water – local and regional audiences used online search engines as a way to both follow the news and understand its impact on public and personal health. A new Pew Research Center study, based on anonymized Google search data from Jan. 5, 2014, through July 2, 2016, delves into the kinds of searches that were most prevalent as a proxy for public interest, concerns and intentions.

The study also tracks the way search activity ebbed and flowed alongside real world events and their associated news coverage. The study begins in 2014, when officials switched the source of municipal drinking water from the Detroit city water system to the Flint River. The study period covers ensuing events that included bacteria-related “boil water” advisories, studies showing elevated lead levels in children’s blood and tap water samples, government-issued lead warnings, bottled-water distribution, declarations of emergency, the filing of criminal charges, a Democratic presidential candidate debate in Flint and a visit to the city by President Barack Obama.

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