**** Advancing the Privacy Story: Information is Power
(Each * denotes an update bliki appendage, below.) That companies leak our data to third parties is now established. To punch out of this torpor, showing how information imbalance is used today will help news consumers shape privacy laws taking form this summer. California Sunday magazine reported last September "how satellites, drones, and planes are making hedge funds money."
Before diving into that specific report, though, a three-point list of what a citizen needs for background understanding is in order:
California Sunday magazine paints a profile of a 30-employee company of data miners called Orbital Insight:
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Further Reading:
Bank accounts, addresses, this truck company is forced to sell off its assets, including your private data. abc.net.au
6/14/2018 This company sells who has been in a car accident recently. clickagy.com
University student data is for sale. Who is buying it? fordham.edu
"But for West, the situation rankled. Her mother had died that year and, as co-executor of the estate, West had run into various problems verifying her online identity during what already was a distressing experience." vtdigger.org
6/20/2018 "Verizon said that about 75 companies have been obtaining its customer data from two little-known California-based brokers that Verizon supplies directly — LocationSmart and Zumigo." abcnews.go.com
6/27/2018 "Remember when we thought government was Big Brother? Nope: Big Brother is us." foxnews.com
6/28/2018 "When you’re the “right” race, gender and sexual orientation, when you’ve got the right schools and jobs on your profile, marketers use tracking to flatter and include you. When you’re not, tracking is more likely to be used to exclude or exploit you." nytimes.com
This work by AJ Fish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Before diving into that specific report, though, a three-point list of what a citizen needs for background understanding is in order:
- Existing law roundup, continuously updated: a clearinghouse of all data protection, breach notification and data privacy laws in the U.S. would be useful.
- Pending ballot measure roundup, continuously updated: the California initiative to outlaw sale of private users' data that voters decide on this fall is just one item for this group.
- Data availability roundup: a look at information imbalance should examine whether any data is available only to entrenched interests, or can be excavated by lay hobbyists too.
California Sunday magazine paints a profile of a 30-employee company of data miners called Orbital Insight:
Every morning, hours before the opening bell signals the start of another trading day on Wall Street, an undisclosed group of hedge fund managers receive something they’ve spent good money on: the latest estimate of the world’s crude-oil supply. Oil happens to be the most closely watched commodity in the global economy, and many countries are tight-lipped about how much they’ve stowed away. So traders pay to eliminate the guesswork — to find out the number of barrels in oil-rich states like Louisiana and Texas, or the entire stockpile of Saudi Arabia.Satellite images are available too to lay hobbyists, which is great news.
Three thousand miles west in Mountain View, California, lies the source of that oil data, a company called Orbital Insight, which, according to its mission statement, finds “truth and transparency” in the world’s rhythms. What that means in practice is that roughly 30 engineers and scientists spend their days sifting through satellite images for information their customers ... want.
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Further Reading:
Bank accounts, addresses, this truck company is forced to sell off its assets, including your private data. abc.net.au
6/14/2018 This company sells who has been in a car accident recently. clickagy.com
University student data is for sale. Who is buying it? fordham.edu
"But for West, the situation rankled. Her mother had died that year and, as co-executor of the estate, West had run into various problems verifying her online identity during what already was a distressing experience." vtdigger.org
6/20/2018 "Verizon said that about 75 companies have been obtaining its customer data from two little-known California-based brokers that Verizon supplies directly — LocationSmart and Zumigo." abcnews.go.com
6/27/2018 "Remember when we thought government was Big Brother? Nope: Big Brother is us." foxnews.com
6/28/2018 "When you’re the “right” race, gender and sexual orientation, when you’ve got the right schools and jobs on your profile, marketers use tracking to flatter and include you. When you’re not, tracking is more likely to be used to exclude or exploit you." nytimes.com
This work by AJ Fish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
