Laura’s Lens

“The language of these patents makes it clear that Google is acutely aware of the powers of inference it has already, even without cameras, by augmenting speakers to recognize the noises you make as you move around the house.”

Read ‘The Next Data Mine Is Your Bedroom’.

“LinkedIn processed the email addresses of 18 million non-members and targeted them with advertising on Facebook without permission, an audit by the [Irish] Data Protection Commissioner has found.”

Read ‘LinkedIn processed 18 million email addresses of non-users for targeted advertising’.

“this is being interpreted by data experts as the regulator stating that consent to processing personal data cannot be gained through a framework arrangement which bundles a number of uses behind a single “I agree” button that, when clicked, passes consent to partners via a contractual relationship.”

Read ‘How a small French privacy ruling could remake adtech for good’.

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“What gives you this right, and why weren’t we asked about this before you and Summit invaded our privacy in this way?”

Read ‘Students protest Zuckerberg-backed digital learning program and ask him: ‘What gives you this right?’’.

“‘The world is being rebuilt by companies and governments so that they can exploit data. Without urgent and continuous action, data will be used in ways that people cannot now even imagine, to define and manipulate our lives without us beginning to understand why or being able to effectively fight back,’ said Frederike Kaltheuner, who heads up Privacy International’s data exploitation program.”

Read ‘Privacy Activists Take On Oracle and Equifax Over Shadowy Profiling’.

“As evidence accumulated that Facebook’s power could also be exploited to disrupt elections, broadcast viral propaganda and inspire deadly campaigns of hate around the globe, Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg stumbled. Bent on growth, the pair ignored warning signs and then sought to conceal them from public view. At critical moments over the last three years, they were distracted by personal projects, and passed off security and policy decisions to subordinates, according to current and former executives.”

Read ‘Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis’.

“Now that Streams is a Google product itself, that promise appears to have been broken, says privacy researcher Julia Powles: ‘Making this about semantics is a sleight of hand. DeepMind said it would never connect Streams with Google. The whole Streams app is now a Google product. That is an atrocious breach of trust, for an already beleaguered product.’”

Read ‘Google ‘betrays patient trust’ with DeepMind Health move’.

“Ads are the traditional funding source for social platforms; they take users' personal data and serve it to advertisers who want their ads to reach a specific audience. This virtually ensures a fundamentally exploitative business model based on surveillance, says Laura Kalbag, a designer and the co-founder of digital justice not-for-profit Ind.ie.”

Read ‘The quest to design an ethical social media platform’.

“these tests show that compliance with the feature is entirely voluntary, meaning a tool that Facebook introduced to increase trust in advertising can also be used as a vector for misinformation, and another way bad actors can game Facebook’s platform.”

Read ‘We posed as 100 senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them.’.

“Today, we have a new set of robber barons, running digital monopolies and again receiving disproportionate benefits from the disruption brought about by new technology. History tells us we will need to regulate their monopolies just as we regulated previous monopolies.”

It’s another one of those very-quotable articles.

Read ‘Facebook and Google are run by today’s robber barons. Break them up’.