Privacy Is Power summary

The data economy only really kicked off in the twenty-first century. Even as recently as the late 1990s, a TV was still just a TV, a car just a car. They weren’t interested in you. They didn’t listen in on your conversations or track your movements. In the 1990s, your devices still served you, not the other way around. 

The surveillance economy took most people by surprise. It was as though we all woke up one morning to a new, bleaker reality.

No matter who gets hold of your personal information, it gives them power over you. 

When you share your private information with the people you love, you trust them to only use this information in ways that benefit you. For example, a friend might use her knowledge of your tastes and interests to recommend a book.

In some respects, asbestos is a useful substance. It’s durable, it can be mined cheaply, and it’s resistant to fire, which is why it was once used ubiquitously in construction. The problem is, it comes with a pretty major drawback – it’s deadly to humans.

Personal data is the asbestos of the digital world. It too can be mined cheaply, and it’s also very useful for predicting and influencing human behavior. But much like asbestos, personal data is a toxic commodity. When it leaks out into the world, it can damage lives, ruin businesses, and threaten public safety.

In the offline world, if someone were to follow you around, we’d call it stalking. If someone were to take your diary, we’d call it snooping. And, if your letter carrier were to read your letters in the same way that Google and other companies read your emails, they’d receive jail time.

Yet, when it comes to the online world, this behavior is tolerated and even considered essential to the economy of the internet. Why on earth do we have such a double standard?

The surveillance economy caught us off guard. The tech industry developed faster than governments were able to regulate it. True to Silicon Valley’s mantra, tech companies moved fast and broke things – things like lives and democracies.

But as all-powerful as the tech giants might seem, they’re more fragile than they look. Most of their power derives from our data. We’d only need to pass some modest legislation protecting our right to privacy online, and the tech giants would fall like a house of cards.

At Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, there’s a special room dedicated to the management of its cloud computing system, Azure. Inside this room, there are two large screens. One displays system status, and the other displays public sentiment toward the system, as expressed on social media.

Why would Microsoft display the public sentiment toward its cloud system in the same room where it manages its functionality? Because cooperation from the public is essential for the technology to function.