Opinion | How Capitalism Betrayed Privacy - The New York Times - 0 views
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For much of human history, what we now call “privacy” was better known as being rich
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The historical link between privacy and the forces of wealth creation helps explain why privacy is under siege today. It reminds us, first, that mass privacy is not a basic feature of human existence but a byproduct of a specific economic arrangemen
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in a capitalist country, our baseline of privacy depends on where the money is. And today that has changed.
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We have witnessed the rise of what I call “attention merchants” and what the sociologist Shoshana Zuboff calls “surveillance capitalism” — the commodification of our personal data by tech giants like Facebook a
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We face a future in which active surveillance is such a routine part of business that for most people it is nearly inescapable
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stronger privacy protections. But that will require laws that do not merely tinker with but fundamentally alter the economics of privacy.
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In the United States, it is safe to say, privacy “won” the 20th century. Its crowning triumph was the Supreme Court’s recognition in 1965 of a constitutional right to privacy
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The race to maximize those assets by companies big and small has made surveillance a growth industry. It is in this sense that capitalism has begun to change sides.
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new technologies coupled with new theories of value have transformed the economics of privacy. A drastic decrease in the cost of mass surveillance (thanks to the internet) has increased the value of two types of asset: our data and our attention.
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the richest companies in the world now generate wealth by putting as many trackers, devices and screens inside our homes and as close to our bodies as possible
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There is good reason to believe that, if nothing is done, gratuitous surveillance will be built into nearly every business and business model.
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data and surveillance networks created for one purpose can and will be used for others. You must assume that any personal data that Facebook or Android keeps are data that governments around the world will try to get o
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once you realize you’re being watched, it is a tough sensation to shake. As our experiences with social media have made all too clear, we act differently when we know we are “on the record.”
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Mass privacy is the freedom to act without being watched and thus, in a sense, to be who we really are — not who we want others to think we are. At stake, then, is something akin to the soul.
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To be truly effective, privacy laws must seek to change the incentives that foster gratuitous surveillance and the reckless accumulation of personalized data. We need strong bans, including those that prohibit companies from sharing their customers’ personal information