Reading Permanent record, autobiography of Edward Snowden.There is an intresting bit when he talks about Intelligence agencies & tech industries.The very belief that they are entitled to their unilateral decision making based on data,makes them apolitical as data itself is just information.The idea of harmless surveilance or surveilance for greater good?
Makes me feel vulnerable when one pours out into the digital world,someone is just calling it data & putting a label on you & uses it in a way profitable to them.Imagine tweeting feeling sad tonight after a break up & netflix suggests me Always be my may be😐 and Google suggests best shops that sell cookie dough near by.They know me too well.🙊
Its like they put a label on my feeling & advertise it."swapy is sad & would probably eat cookie dough today & watch netflix😣."
The otherside to this is the assumption that since I posted it, I gave them permission to use this data.But do most people even read the license agreement or data usage policies?People just click accept.I didnt agree to sell my sadness 😑.These tech companies are merging all the time.Google has taken over so many that google knows more about me than I do.Its like If I die, the google me would go on living, inactive till they archive me.creepy digital existance?
This book is a gem.Especially for people from a country like India where the Data protection laws are virtually non existant.
@Simplyswapy I somewhat agree. I dislike how big companies, particularly social networks, can manipulate data and reinforce some behaviors in ways that may not be good for society (e.g., anything related to politics), but it is sometimes practical in terms of how easier it makes for searching results or curating things that I'm genuinely not interested in. Reading Snowden's book makes me more wary of the governments themselves than any private corp, as they can be more dangerous with the data they collect about us.
@Canas
I Agree too.Govts have more ulterior motives but they collect our data from these firms themselves like the PRISM program of NSA.So I am equally wary of pvt firms & the govt.The govt I hold responsible more than the pvt firms, because that is an elected establishment to serve the people.They should have more intergity & responsibility to its citizens than pvt firms,pvt firms exist for profit.