Online privacy

Many US voters in a recent Morning Consult/Politico poll, including pluralities of both Democrats and Republicans, said they’d like to see the next Congress make it a top priority to pass measures that better protect consumer data, outweighing other more partisan concerns such as efforts to codify network neutrality and addressing allegations of political bias and censorship on social media.

Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office, which has been investigating the misuse of personal data by political campaigns, found that defunct political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica violated British law when it used improperly harvested Facebook data to aid Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and would face a significant fine if it were not already in bankruptcy.

The web was designed to bring people together and make knowledge freely available. Everyone has a role to play to ensure the web serves humanity. By committing to the following principles, governments, companies and citizens around the world can help protect the open web as a public good and a basic right for everyone.

Governments Will

Ensure everyone can connect to the internet so that anyone, no matter who they are or where they live, can participate actively online.

Tim Berners-Lee has launched a global campaign to save the web from the destructive effects of abuse and discrimination, political manipulation, and other threats that plague the online world. The inventor of the web called on governments, companies and individuals to back a new “Contract for the Web” that aims to protect people’s rights and freedoms on the internet. The contract outlines central principles that will be built into a full contract and published in May 2019, when half of the world’s population will be able to get online.

The time has come for a new set of guardrails for information capitalism that protect citizens and promote marketplace competition. The framework for such policies already exists and is embedded in the principles of common law. Companies have responsibilities: a “duty of care” to not cause harm, and a “duty to deal” to prevent monopoly bottlenecks. The harvesting of personal information – often without the individual’s knowledge – infringes on the sovereignty of the individual and their personal privacy.

NCTA–The Internet & Television Association CEO Michael Powell, called for tighter controls against massive tech companies like Google, Facebook and Netflix on issues like privacy and data collection, but added that moves to implement net neutrality rules on a state level isn’t the solution. He said that federal regulators have failed to see the influence of companies like Google and Facebook, adding that in the government’s eyes, they are tech companies that need to be protected. 

Thasos is at the vanguard of companies trying to help traders get ahead of stock moves like that using so-called alternative data. Such suppliers might examine mine slag heaps from outer space, analyze credit-card spending data or sort through construction permits. Thasos’s specialty is spewing out of your smartphone. “It’s creating this data all the time, even if it’s not ringing,” said Greg Skibiski, Thasos’s 45-year-old founder and chief executive. “It’s a beacon.

Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR) released a discussion draft of sweeping new legislation, Consumer Data Protection Act, that would empower consumers to control their personal information, create radical transparency into how corporations use and share their data, and impose harsh fines and prison terms for executives at corporations that misuse Americans’ data.

Privacy controversies continue to plague Google. In this seemingly unshakeable cycle of improvements and gaffes, it's nearly impossible to make a full accounting of Google's user privacy impacts and protections. But it's critical to understand how the people on the front lines of that fight think about their jobs, and how it fits in with the fundamental truth of how Google makes money.