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s Big Data becomes a more common tool in
corporate decisions, a number of new social perils
arise. The most obvious is the risk of privacy violations.
“Is personalization something that is done to you
or for you?”wondered Kim Taipale of the Center
for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology. A
business with economic motives is driving the process
of data-driven personalization, but consumers have
far less knowledge of what is going on and have far
less ability to respond. Taipale noted that the benefts
of personalization tend to accrue to businesses but
the harms are inficted on dispersed and unorganized
individuals.
Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director of the Electronic
Privacy Information Center, admits that there are two
sides to personalization. When Amazon and iTunes
use their databases of consumer purchases to make
recommendations to prospective customers, most
people welcome the advice. It may help them identify
just the book or music that they want. On the other
hand, “people start getting very uneasy when buying
suggestions are made based on how much we know
about this particular person, a practice that takes us
into the realm of behavioral targeting”—the “my TiVO
thinks I’m gay” phenomenon.
One independent survey of adult Internet users—by
two professors at the University of Pennsylvania and
the University of California, Berkeley, in September
2009—found that two-thirds of users object to online
tracking by advertisers. Respondents particularly
disliked behavioral advertising, in which commercial
websites tailor ads based on an individual’s Web
behavior. “I do think we’re at the cusp of a new era,
and the kinds of information that companies share
and have today is nothing like we’ll see ten years from
now,” said Professor Joseph Turow, the lead author of
the study. “The most important thing is to bring the
public into the picture, which is not going on right
now.”
Citizens are also legitimately worried about Internet
service providers (ISPs) who may use deep packet
inspection techniques to analyze the data fowing
through their wires to determine what websites you
may be visiting and what purchases you may be
making. “In recent years,” said Rotenberg, “ISPs have
recognized that there is commercial value in their
networks, beyond any security issues. Some of the
same tools that can be used to identify spam can be
used to fgure out who’s interested in buying a new
SUV or who’s planning on traveling.”One solution
might be to allow ISPs to use deep packet inspection
for assuring the security of their networks but to
prohibit use of the data for commercial purposes, he
said.
“Vendors are using Big Data to try to acquire the
consumer,” said Bill Stensrud, Chairman and Chief
Executive Ofcer of InstantEncore, “and they are doing
that by using technologies that are beyond the reach
of the consumer by orders of magnitude.” He noted
that three responses have been suggested: counter-
responses by hackers to harass companies that
violate their privacy, schemes to “monetize” people’s
private data so that they can control it and sell it, and
government regulation to protect individual privacy.
“None of these answers leave me very satisfed,” said
Stensrud. “I guess one of the questions that I have
is how does the consumer get armed to fght on an
even ground with the big companies who can make
nano-second stock market trades and personalize
their marketing?”
Joi Ito of Creative Commons took issue with the
whole framing of the discussion as one between
vendors and consumers; there are non-market actors
who are infuential as well. “We don’t use the word
‘consumer’ in our group [Creative Commons], which
acts collectively in the way that people in the hacker,
open source, andWikipedia worlds do. We believe
that there are ways for us to take control so that your
business models don’t matter. We’re in charge.”
Ito cited the hundreds of thousands of fake Twitter
accounts that hackers created in the course of a few
hours after Ashton Kutcher and CNN announced their
hopes of being the frst to amass one million Twitter
followers. A website of disruptive hackers, 4chan,
quickly gamed the system to amass a huge following
for a notorious criminal. For Ito, attacks by “smart
mobs” demonstrate the ability of non-commercial
actors to infuence trends—“a power that is getting
stronger and stronger and stronger,” he said.
Social Perils Posed by Big Data
David Bollier
From: http://www.aspeninstitute.org/publications/promise-peril-big-data