Terms of Service: understanding our role in the world of Big Data by Michael Keller and Josh Neufeld.
Caution: Readers of Terms of Service will discover they are products and only incidentally consumers of digital services. Surprise, dismay, depression, and despair are common symptoms post-reading. You have been warned.
Al Jazeera uses a comic book format to effectively communicate privacy issues raised by Big Data, the Internet of Things, the Internet, and “free” services.
The story begins with privacy concerns over scanning of Gmail content (remember that?) and takes the reader up to present and likely future privacy concerns.
I quibble with the example of someone being denied a loan because they failed to exercise regularly. The authors innocently assume that banks make loans with the intention of being repaid. That’s the story in high school economics but a long way from how lending works in practice.
The recent mortgage crisis in the United States was caused by banks inducing borrowers to over state their incomes, financing a home loan and its down payment, etc. Banks don’t keep such loans but package them as securities which they then foist off onto others. Construction companies make money building the houses, local government gain tax revenue, etc. Basically a form of churn.
But the authors are right that in some theoretical economy loans could be denied because of failure to exercise. Except that would exclude such a large market segment in the United States. Did you know they are about to change the words “…the land of the free…” to “…the land of the obese…?”
That is a minor quibble about what is overall a great piece of work. In only forty-six (46) pages it brings privacy issues into a sharper focus than many longer and more turgid works.
Do you know of any comparable exposition on privacy and Big Data/Internet?
Suggest it for conference swag/holiday present. Write to Terms-of-Service.
I first saw this in a tweet by Gregory Piatetsky.