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1-Page Summary of Data and Goliath

Surveillance on the Rise

We live in a world where people are always watching us. They’re watching what we do online, with our phones, and even when we go outside. There’s no escaping it.

Technology is becoming more and more prevalent, especially with the internet of things. Our phones, cars, thermostats, cameras and fitness-tracking devices are all computers that collect data about us. We use these devices to do everything from getting directions to finding a place to eat or checking traffic on our way home from work. These services require access to personal information in order for them to be most effective; however we often neglect reading privacy policies or considering how much privacy we’re giving up when using applications like Google Maps or Waze.

The United States has a program that monitors people’s behavior and communication, including their phone calls. The National Security Agency (NSA) gathers data on almost every American. It also collects information from Gmail accounts. This intensified after the September 11, 2001 attacks when it was claimed that this step will help fight terrorism better.

Tracking Your Likes

Every time you like a Facebook page, you send a message to marketers. Even if you don’t specify your race, politics or sexual orientation, Facebook guesses those attributes based on your likes. All online activities provide information such as location data that tracks what restaurants you visit and email contacts that reveal who your friends are. Marketers use this data to entice people to spend money by targeting them with ads for products that they might want to buy in the future.

Companies track your Internet browsing by using cookies. They are able to do this because unique identifiers are embedded into the cookies, which allow companies to remember you from click to click. Companies can pay for third-party cookies, so that ads will follow you around the Internet even if you’re researching a particular vacation spot or reading about it in an article on another website.

The Internet is a massive system of interconnected computers that can be accessed by anyone with a computer and the right software. As you browse the Internet, your browser automatically downloads cookies from websites to track your activities online. The market for these tracking technologies has grown into an $8 billion industry in 2010. This kind of surveillance is not just done by governments; it’s done by private companies as well.

People like the convenience of Google searches and Facebook postings because those sites are free. However, we’re not the customers; we’re the products that pay for these services with our personal information.

Internet companies are the new middlemen. Companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon use your data to increase their market dominance. You can get a lot of information from these companies, but you have to be willing to give up some privacy in return for that convenience.

There is a battle among major technology companies to become the go-to service for managing your online life. Apple and Google are two of the biggest names in that race, but it’s not just about them. There are many other players who want to get their hands on your data so they can sell ads based on what you do online. However, as people learn how to ignore ads, those companies have less value and therefore less incentive to collect data from you.

9/11 and the NSA

Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA (National Security Agency) had been spying on people. The agency was formed during the Cold War to spy on foreign governments, but it lost its purpose after communism fell in Eastern Europe. However, 9/11 brought a renewed focus on terrorism and security, so the NSA began tracking entire populations instead of specific governments.