Wealth and fame go hand-in-hand … right? In some cases, sure, where the person or organization in question does their thing in the public sphere. Or where their actions are so broadly noticed or impactful that the results or fallout need to be “managed.”
It is possible to circumvent this. There is a lot of people and organizations out there using money (a lot of money) to mind their business. To snuff out any risk of fame (or infamy).
Living this way – enjoying ironclad privacy no matter how “adventurous” your existence – is possible, but it’ll cost you.
But hey, now you and I can get a taste of that life. Not the incredible wealth part, sorry. We are, however, moving toward a world where, if average folks like you or I want our privacy, we’ll be paying for it.
Social platforms have billions of users, none of whom pays these companies to use them. Yet Facebook, for example (also owner of Instagram and WhatsApp) made nearly US$56 billion in revenue in 2018.
We – or rather the data about who we are, what we like, and what we do online – has become very, very lucrative. Google, which makes most of its money selling ads, which are targeted using – you guessed it – user data, made nearly US$138 billion in 2018.
Not everyone is happy with this arrangement. Tech giants have been caught a few too many times acting in bad faith, using our data or being careless with it in ways we definitely didn’t agree to. (Did we?) Google and Facebook have had multi-billion-dollar fines levied against them by various governments, with more to come.
Canada’s Privacy Commissioner has taken Facebook to court, and the company expects further penalties from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. They’ve set aside $5 billion just for fines.
Some trust in these companies is, perhaps, eroding, but not so much that we make demands or stop using them. To date some governments have threatened to start imposing regulations on the tech giants, but that hasn’t happened yet.
Given the downright embarrassing level of technical savvy many politicians have exhibited, I’m not holding my breath for regulations that protect us well into an unknown future.
Tech CEOs have tried to position themselves as welcoming regulation. But if you scratch the surface it becomes pretty clear that what they’re angling to do is direct the crafting of said regulations.
The best hen houses are designed by foxes, doncha know … (This Canadaland episode has more on that and other troubling issues like the failure to address hate groups on these platforms.)
Some people take moderate steps to secure their online privacy, using VPNs, downloading blocker browser plugins, etc. Plugins that show you how many trackers a given page has are an eye opener.
But, like with most things, you get what you pay for. The better the privacy protection tools, the more likely you’re going to have to pay for them. Thing is, not everyone can afford to do that. Which turns online privacy into a luxury good.
Having a low income doesn’t automatically make people okay with being sold or spied on. And if they can’t pay for privacy tools, they certainly can’t afford lawyers to fight for their right to not to be exploited online.
Unregulated access to our data is bad for everyone, but even more so for those with low incomes, given they’re already often penalized for being poor. Usage of lifestyle data, for example, could fuel further discrimination.
We’re already being “rewarded” for agreeing to hand over our data. A device on your car that tracks your driving habits can get you a discount on car insurance. Same with health coverage for sharing data from a Fitbit or similar device.
But what happens when it’s no longer about a discount, but a requirement for coverage? That particular slope gets very slippery very quickly.
It’s been proposed that the future may bring a subscription-based model (which includes privacy) to many platforms. Similar to how we can pay for subscriptions to receive ad-free or unlimited access to services.
We’ll be able to pay for a better tier of access where, ostensibly, we have some right to our privacy as we go about our online lives. Sharing only with whom we want to share, and not being tracked, logged, sold, and sold to. But again, what about those who can’t pay?
Whether or not you actually believe a subscription would work to protect you is another discussion. Even if you can afford $5/month, if the tech giants continue to misbehave, I suspect you’re not quite in the same league, in terms of the calibre of lawyers you can afford, as a company that can casually set aside $5 billion to pay fines.
We also need to remain clear that actually supporting and enforcing users’ privacy is not the same thing as social platforms just not indiscriminately selling (or losing control of) our data … while they hoard it and use it themselves.
Of course, this entire argument could be moot. You could opt out of all of it. You could pay for the privilege of privacy. And it still might not matter. Because no internet user is an island, and your information could be accessible by people and platforms you’ve never even used.
Your airline could run facial recognition to approve flight boarding ... even though you never posed for a photo or signed up for that. Or you could become part of a criminal investigation because some distant relative submitted their DNA to a testing service, and now you’re involved in a forensic genealogy investigation. (Hope you paid those parking tickets.)
While these situations are sensational headline-makers, and could be used to do good, uses of these technologies is new, and so, again, unregulated.
We don’t know how or in what ways the data could be used, and restrictions have more to do with the current limits of the technology, its availability, or communications among agencies that may access it.
Looking ahead, retroactive attempts to regulate privacy would be attempts to close the barn door behind a long-departed horse, and do nothing to repair or mitigate damage already done.
The internet is forever. Ask anyone who’s ever wanted something removed or at least buried in search rankings. According to my Facebook data dump, 1,147 companies have accessed my contact information for advertising, unbeknownst to me (and I keep things pretty locked down). Several hundred are for American car dealerships (???).
How would I get that data removed? How would I prevent access to my data by companies that I don’t like or whose advertising is irrelevant to me? I can’t.
And if you don’t have a few billion lying around, neither can you. The future is private, indeed.
M-Theory is an opinion column by Melanie Baker. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Communitech. Melle can be reached on Twitter at @melle or by email at me@melle.ca.
