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Saturday, January 26, 2019
Geek Trivia: What Was The First Song Encoded Into MP3 Format?
from How-To Geek http://bit.ly/2Rkn0IA
Independent artists say Amazon has failed to implement even minor changes that would make it harder for merchants to sell goods that violate artist copyrights (Nicole Nguyen/BuzzFeed News)
Independent artists say Amazon has failed to implement even minor changes that would make it harder for merchants to sell goods that violate artist copyrights — Independent artists, who aren't afforded the same protection as big brands on Amazon, say that fighting copyright infringement by third-party sellers is never-ending.
from Techmeme http://bit.ly/2B4Nuc6
Profile of David Carroll, whose two-year fight to reclaim his data from Cambridge Analytica has brought to light large questions around data privacy (Issie Lapowsky/Wired)
Profile of David Carroll, whose two-year fight to reclaim his data from Cambridge Analytica has brought to light large questions around data privacy — David Carroll has been locked in a legal war to force the infamous company to turn over its files on him. He's won a battle, but the struggle continues.
from Techmeme http://bit.ly/2CJrLpY
Didi says its global ride-hailing network had 550M users, over 31M drivers, and covered more than 1,000 cities around the world in 2018 (Jane Zhang/South China Morning Post)
Didi says its global ride-hailing network had 550M users, over 31M drivers, and covered more than 1,000 cities around the world in 2018 — - Following scandals, Didi has focused on safety overhauls, including in-trip audio recordings by passengers and drivers and in-car panic buttons
from Techmeme http://bit.ly/2Tf5x69
Inside Alibaba's futuristic 290-room FlyZoo hotel where it showcases its prowess in AI and incubates tech it wants to sell to the hospitality industry (Cate Cadell/Reuters)
Inside Alibaba's futuristic 290-room FlyZoo hotel where it showcases its prowess in AI and incubates tech it wants to sell to the hospitality industry — HANGZHOU, China (Reuters) - Gliding silently through Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's futuristic “FlyZoo” hotel, black disc-shaped robots …
from Techmeme http://bit.ly/2CLdWHE
tZERO, Overstock.com's security token trading platform which raised $134M in an ICO last August, went live on Thursday (Nikhilesh De/CoinDesk)
tZERO, Overstock.com's security token trading platform which raised $134M in an ICO last August, went live on Thursday — Overstock.com's much-anticipated security token trading platform, tZERO, officially began trading Thursday afternoon. — The company announced in a press release …
from Techmeme http://bit.ly/2DCjE07
Without proof, is Huawei really a national security threat?
It’s Huawei vs. the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and most of Europe and Japan.
It’s almost as if the world’s biggest surveillance superpowers don’t want Huawei cell tower and networking router equipment inside critical networks in their countries, amid concerns of the company’s links to the Chinese military.
Huawei, they say, could be spying for the Chinese — and that presents a national security risk.
But there’s a problem. Years of congressional hearings and “inconclusive” hardware inspections have presented a mixed picture on the threat that Huawei may, or may not pose. Despite the fact that the company’s founder and president is a former officer in China’s People’s Liberation Army and the company remains heavily funded by the Chinese government, there’s also no public, direct evidence that Huawei is using its equipment to spy on network traffic inside the U.S. or any other country. In any case, Huawei can’t prove a negative, so all it can do is allow governments to assess its devices — which has so far found some issues but nothing conclusive to tie it to Chinese espionage actors.
That’s the crux of the argument: nobody thinks Huawei is spying now. To get caught would be too dangerous. But nobody knows that it won’t spy in the future.
The worst case nightmare scenario is that telcos will snap up Huawei’s technology and install its equipment in every nook, cranny and corner of their networks. Why wouldn’t they? The technology is cheap, said to be reliable, and is necessary for the impending 5G expansion. Then years later China exploits a hidden vulnerability that either lets its hackers steal economic secrets from businesses.
At that point, it would be too late. The network operators can’t just rip out their routers and switches. The damage is done.
Telcos need Huawei as much as Huawei needs them. But the North American and European telcos are finding it increasingly difficult to navigate pressures from their governments, which treat them as critical national infrastructure and a constant national security concern.
The reality is that China is no more a national security threat than the U.S. is to China, which has its own burgeoning networking equipment business. Just as much as the U.S. and Canada might not want to use Huawei or ZTE equipment in their networks for fear of a surprise cyberattack ten years down the line, why should China, Russia, or any other “frenemy” state choose HPE or Cisco technologies?
Companies have an option: Is the enemy you know better than the one you don’t?
Ren Zhengfei, founder and chief executive officer of Huawei Technologies Co., attends an interview at the company’s headquarters in Shenzhen, China, on Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019. Ren, the billionaire telecom mogul, broke years of public silence to dismiss U.S. accusations the telecoms giant helps Beijing spy on Western governments and to praise Donald Trump for his tax cuts. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The U.S. government has persisted across administrations with its fiery rhetoric over Huawei’s links to the Chinese government, since a House Intelligence Committee report in 2012 pushed for a domestic ban on equipment built by Huawei and ZTE, another Chinese electronics maker, and even warning against using their consumer phones. Noticeably absent from the House’s report was any specific proof of Chinese spying.
Core to the panel’s claim that “a router that turns on in the middle of the night, starts sending back large data packs, and it happens to be sent back to China,” said former congressman Mike Rogers (R-MI). Huawei, which has always denied the claims, has long called for evidence. Only this week, the U.S. said it doesn’t need to show proof, citing the company’s ability to be “leveraged by the Chinese government.”
The report contained claims of bribery and corruption, copyright infringement and more, but there was no smoking gun that proved that the company was spying — only that it could at the request of Beijing.
China’s authoritarian rule notwithstanding, the country says that it doesn’t have a single law that can compel a company to spy on its behalf or put backdoors in its products. Westerners are rightfully skeptical: in China, the government doesn’t need a law to say it can or can’t do something.
Yet ironically, it’s the U.S. and the U.K. — and more recently Australia — that have laws in place that can in fact compel a company to turn over data, or force a company to install backdoors. After the Edward Snowden disclosures that revealed the scope of U.S. surveillance, China retaliated by dropping U.S. technology from its networks and systems. That was no bother for China; it has its own booming tech industry, and just started using its own homegrown equipment instead.
Other countries aren’t so lucky, and more often than not are stuck between buying their tech from the two spying giants.
Western nations would rather trust U.S. technology with its powerful surveillance laws, while the rest of the world either trusts Chinese technology or simply doesn’t care.
Any technology can be a national security risk. It’s less selecting the right gear, and more picking your poison.
from TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2FROsMN
Pictures of what appear to be the two models of Samsung's Galaxy S10 leak, showing "Infinity-O" display, very thin bezels, USB-C port, and a headphone jack (James Vincent/The Verge)
Pictures of what appear to be the two models of Samsung's Galaxy S10 leak, showing “Infinity-O” display, very thin bezels, USB-C port, and a headphone jack — Well, the leaks start coming and they don't stop coming — There's less than a month to go before Samsung unveils …
from Techmeme http://bit.ly/2HA1wI7
What (we think) we know about the Samsung Galaxy S10
The Galaxy S10 will be revealed at an event in San Francisco on February 20. This much we know for sure. Samsung sent out invites for the event sporting a giant number a few weeks back. It’s clear the company’s looking to get out ahead of what should be a fairly action-packed Mobile World Congress this year.
We know, too, that the event will be occasion for the company to talk up its forthcoming foldable. Samsung told up as much during its last developer conference — and for good measure, the invite also sported a large crease down the middle. The S10, however, will almost certainly be the real star of the show.
And in typical Samsung fashion, the new flagship has been leaking out like crazy since late last year. By now, it seems, we’ve seen handset from every conceivable angle. So here’s what we know — or, what we think we know, at least.
For starters, Samsung is skipping the notch altogether, jumping straight from skinny top bezel to pinhole cutout — what the company called its “Infinity O” display. It’s more or less the same as the one found on the recently revealed Galaxy A9 Pro. The S10+, meanwhile, will feature an oblong version of hole punch, seemingly in order to include a second front-facing camera.
Interestingly, there are believed to be three S10 models set to be announced on the 20th. You’ve got your standard S10 (6.1-inch), the S10 Plus (6.4-inch) and a budget version (5.8-inch), which will be something akin to Samsung’s take on the iPhone XR. Among other things, the product may be devoid of the curved screens that have become a mainstay for the Galaxy line.
With Samsung’s Note woes well in the rearview mirror, the company is reportedly amping up to once again boost the battery life, with the S10 sporting a 3,100mAh and the Plus carrying a whopping 4,100mAh. Huge if true.
Less surprising is the inclusion of the Snapdragon 855 — that’s going to power practically every non-iPhone flagship this year. Ditto for Android Pie. 5G is much less certain, however. While it’s true that Samsung has already announced that not one but two handset will arrive from the company sporting the next-gen cellular tech, we can’t say for sure whether the S10 will be among them.
That said, rumors about a Galaxy S10 X sporting the tech aren’t out of the real of possibility. That seems more likely than Samsung shoehorning it into the base model. After all, 5G won’t be hitting a saturation point this year. That could bring the number of S10 models up to four.
Similarly, rumors around the headphone jack are all over the place. The latest images, however, seem to confirm that Samsung’s staying put on that one, steadfastly remaining one of the last flagships to sport the once ubiquitous port.
from TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2Hx04Go
An overview of projects like NewsGuard, and how efforts to rank the credibility of news sites can be problematic, despite good intentions (Will Oremus/Slate)
An overview of projects like NewsGuard, and how efforts to rank the credibility of news sites can be problematic, despite good intentions — In the era of fake news, a cottage industry of startups is competing to turn media credibility into a booming business. Do we really want that?
from Techmeme http://bit.ly/2FQYKwz
Original Content podcast: Fyre Festival docs shine light on a social media-fueled disaster
Netflix and Hulu have each released their own documentaries about the infamous Fyre Festival, and the hard-working hosts of the Original Content podcast have watched both of them.
We’re joined this week by Brian Heater, and the three of us are unanimous on one thing: If you’re only going to watch one of these documentaries, make it “Fyre” on Netflix. It’s the better-made movie, offering a clearer retelling of what actually went wrong at the first-time music festival in the Bahamas.
But if you’ve got the time, watching both films will give you a fuller picture. “Fyre Fraud” on Hulu is the one that scored interview with Fyre mastermind Billy McFarland — though the interview becomes increasingly awkward as he evades or outright refuses to answer many of the filmmakers’ questions (and they’ve taken heat for apparently paying McFarland for the interview).
More interestingly, the Hulu film makes more of an effort to connect the Fyre Festival to the bigger picture of millennial and influencer culture. In fact, McFarland’s fake-it-till-you-make-it ethos sometimes felt uncomfortably close to what we’ve seen when writing about tech startups.
The Oscar nominations were also announced this week, so we discussed the Best Picture nods received by Netflix’s “Roma” and by “Black Panther” — the first superhero film nominated in this category.
You can listen in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You also can send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!)
from TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2B6rNs2
How have tariffs impacted robotics?
In July, Tim Cook met Donald Trump in the Oval Office to deliver a simple message. “Our view on tariffs is that they show up as a tax on the consumer and end up resulting in lower economic growth,” the executive told the President. ”And sometimes can bring about significant risk of unintended consequences.”
Cook ultimately got his way, with Trump giving some of the company’s products a last minute tariff reprieve. Even so, when time came for the company’s latest earnings report, Cook placed much of the company’s relatively weak showing on two-way tariffs and the looming trade war they represent.
The impact of tariffs has been been profoundly wide ranging, impacting everything from solar panels to soy beans. Harley Davidson famously projected costs in excess of $40 million last year. Yesterday, The New York Times noted tumbling sales and stock prices in the washing machine industry, thanks in part to tariffs starting at 20 percent on imported products.
Consumer electronics, which are so often the product of components from wide ranging sources, have been hit with an outsized impact.
“The cost of the current tariffs remains an issue, and the uncertainty of potentially more tariffs combined with export controls is a real threat to our global leadership 5G, artificial intelligence and robotics,” CTA President and CEO Gary Shapiro told TechCrunch. “The tech industry – responsible for 10 percent of U.S. GDP and more than 15 million American jobs – has already been dealt an enormous blow by tariffs this year. Our industry can’t continue to pay $1 billion dollars extra in tariffs every month — tariffs are taxes.”
Over the past several months, manufacturers have been faced with the choice of raising prices or absorbing costs — neither a particularly great option in a volatile economy. This has left Massachusetts-based iRobot, which has been a key driver in consumer robotics, in a difficult position.
CEO Colin Angle told TechCrunch that, while the company has less price sensitivity with its premium priced Roomba devices, the company is still feeling a major crunch.
“The tariffs suck,” said Angle. “In Q4, we absorbed the cost of the tariffs. We did not adjust pricing, and I think we estimated the impact to our profitability for the year at $5 million. In 2019, we, like all of the other manufacturers of robots and most of the manufacturers of consumer goods, have raised the price, because our business model doesn’t allow us to take that hit. What that means is the growth rate of the industry is going to be negatively impacted.”
On the more industrial side, the robotics industry has been hit hard by the rising price of steel imports. “With the tariffs that have recently been placed on a lot of the steel in particular that’s getting imported from China, it puts a lot of pressure not just on Eckhart, but a lot of the companies that we compete against in addition to our customers,” Andrew Storm, the CEO of collaborative robotics maker Eckhart said in a recent interview with Fox Business.
Things have been less pronounced for China-based drone giant, DJI. “We’ve seen some impacts from tariffs on components and miscellaneous gear, but not on our drone business,” a spokesperson told TechCrunch. “We always have to take into account tariffs, currency fluctuations and other factors like that in setting prices for countries around the world, so I don’t want to overstate the impact here. We are monitoring the situation closely, and since we can’t directly affect these trade issues, we’re staying focused on trying to make the best drones people can buy.”
For now, at least, it seems that even a looming trade war with China can’t stop the inevitable rise of robotics and automation — it could, however, serve to hamper its growth.
“The tariffs that we are seeing are having an impact on the manufacturing industries, such as automotive manufacturing, which are the traditional buyers of industrial robotics and automation technology,” IDC’s Research Director covering commercial service robotics John Santagate said in a statement offered to TechCrunch. “There was a bit of a slip in 2018 in terms of orders of robots to automotive manufacturing, but we also saw a significant increase in orders of robots in other industries. The growth of robotics in other industries is showing strong growth, that will likely continue regardless.”
from TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2G3wtCo
Zuckerberg's WSJ op-ed and rumored push to unify messaging infrastructure across Facebook's apps may be signs of company's increased concern about regulation (Kurt Wagner/Recode)
Zuckerberg's WSJ op-ed and rumored push to unify messaging infrastructure across Facebook's apps may be signs of company's increased concern about regulation — It sure feels like regulation is coming for Facebook. — The threat of government regulation has been looming over Facebook …
from Techmeme http://bit.ly/2HByI22
Has the fight over privacy changed at all in 2019?
Few issues divide the tech community quite like privacy. Much of Silicon Valley’s wealth has been built on data-driven advertising platforms, and yet, there remain constant concerns about the invasiveness of those platforms.
Such concerns have intensified in just the last few weeks as France’s privacy regulator placed a record fine on Google under Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules which the company now plans to appeal. Yet with global platform usage and service sales continuing to tick up, we asked a panel of eight privacy experts: “Has anything fundamentally changed around privacy in tech in 2019? What is the state of privacy and has the outlook changed?”
This week’s participants include:
- Albert Gidari – Consulting Director of Privacy at Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society; Professor at Stanford Law School
- Gabriel Weinberg – CEO and Founder of DuckDuckGo
- Melika Carroll -Senior VP of Global Government Affairs at The Internet Association
- Johnny Ryan – Chief Policy and Industry Relations Officer at Brave
- John Miller – VP of Global Policy and Law at the Information Technology Industry Council
- Nuala O’Connor – President and CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology
- Chris Baker – Senior VP and General Manager of EMEA at Box
- Christopher Wolf – Founder and Chair of the Future Privacy Forum; Senior counsel at Hogan Lovells focusing on internet law, privacy and data protection policy
TechCrunch is experimenting with new content forms. Consider this a recurring venue for debate, where leading experts – with a diverse range of vantage points and opinions – provide us with thoughts on some of the biggest issues currently in tech, startups and venture. If you have any feedback, please reach out: Arman.Tabatabai@techcrunch.com.
Thoughts & Responses:
Albert Gidari
Albert Gidari is the Consulting Director of Privacy at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. He was a partner for over 20 years at Perkins Coie LLP, achieving a top-ranking in privacy law by Chambers, before retiring to consult with CIS on its privacy program. He negotiated the first-ever “privacy by design” consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission. A recognized expert on electronic surveillance law, he brought the first public lawsuit before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, seeking the right of providers to disclose the volume of national security demands received and the number of affected user accounts, ultimately resulting in greater public disclosure of such requests.
There is no doubt that the privacy environment changed in 2018 with the passage of California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), implementation of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and new privacy laws enacted around the globe.
“While privacy regulation seeks to make tech companies betters stewards of the data they collect and their practices more transparent, in the end, it is a deception to think that users will have more “privacy.””
The fundamental model sustaining the Internet is based upon the exchange of user data for free service. As long as advertising dollars drive the growth of the Internet, regulation simply will tinker around the edges, setting sideboards to dictate the terms of the exchange. The tech companies may be more accountable for how they handle data and to whom they disclose it, but the fact is that data will continue to be collected from all manner of people, places and things.
Indeed, if the past year has shown anything it is that two rules are fundamental: (1) everything that can be connected to the Internet will be connected; and (2) everything that can be collected, will be collected, analyzed, used and monetized. It is inexorable.
While privacy regulation seeks to make tech companies betters stewards of the data they collect and their practices more transparent, in the end, it is a deception to think that users will have more “privacy.” No one even knows what “more privacy” means. If it means that users will have more control over the data they share, that is laudable but not achievable in a world where people have no idea how many times or with whom they have shared their information already. Can you name all the places over your lifetime where you provided your SSN and other identifying information? And given that the largest data collector (and likely least secure) is government, what does control really mean?
All this is not to say that privacy regulation is futile. But it is to recognize that nothing proposed today will result in a fundamental shift in privacy policy or provide a panacea of consumer protection. Better privacy hygiene and more accountability on the part of tech companies is a good thing, but it doesn’t solve the privacy paradox that those same users who want more privacy broadly share their information with others who are less trustworthy on social media (ask Jeff Bezos), or that the government hoovers up data at rate that makes tech companies look like pikers (visit a smart city near you).
Many years ago, I used to practice environmental law. I watched companies strive to comply with new laws intended to control pollution by creating compliance infrastructures and teams aimed at preventing, detecting and deterring violations. Today, I see the same thing at the large tech companies – hundreds of employees have been hired to do “privacy” compliance. The language is the same too: cradle to grave privacy documentation of data flows for a product or service; audits and assessments of privacy practices; data mapping; sustainable privacy practices. In short, privacy has become corporatized and industrialized.
True, we have cleaner air and cleaner water as a result of environmental law, but we also have made it lawful and built businesses around acceptable levels of pollution. Companies still lawfully dump arsenic in the water and belch volatile organic compounds in the air. And we still get environmental catastrophes. So don’t expect today’s “Clean Privacy Law” to eliminate data breaches or profiling or abuses.
The privacy world is complicated and few people truly understand the number and variety of companies involved in data collection and processing, and none of them are in Congress. The power to fundamentally change the privacy equation is in the hands of the people who use the technology (or choose not to) and in the hands of those who design it, and maybe that’s where it should be.
Gabriel Weinberg
Gabriel Weinberg is the Founder and CEO of privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo.
Coming into 2019, interest in privacy solutions is truly mainstream. There are signs of this everywhere (media, politics, books, etc.) and also in DuckDuckGo’s growth, which has never been faster. With solid majorities now seeking out private alternatives and other ways to be tracked less online, we expect governments to continue to step up their regulatory scrutiny and for privacy companies like DuckDuckGo to continue to help more people take back their privacy.
“Consumers don’t necessarily feel they have anything to hide – but they just don’t want corporations to profit off their personal information, or be manipulated, or unfairly treated through misuse of that information.”
We’re also seeing companies take action beyond mere regulatory compliance, reflecting this new majority will of the people and its tangible effect on the market. Just this month we’ve seen Apple’s Tim Cook call for stronger privacy regulation and the New York Times report strong ad revenue in Europe after stopping the use of ad exchanges and behavioral targeting.
At its core, this groundswell is driven by the negative effects that stem from the surveillance business model. The percentage of people who have noticed ads following them around the Internet, or who have had their data exposed in a breach, or who have had a family member or friend experience some kind of credit card fraud or identity theft issue, reached a boiling point in 2018. On top of that, people learned of the extent to which the big platforms like Google and Facebook that collect the most data are used to propagate misinformation, discrimination, and polarization. Consumers don’t necessarily feel they have anything to hide – but they just don’t want corporations to profit off their personal information, or be manipulated, or unfairly treated through misuse of that information. Fortunately, there are alternatives to the surveillance business model and more companies are setting a new standard of trust online by showcasing alternative models.
Melika Carroll
Melika Carroll is Senior Vice President, Global Government Affairs at Internet Association, which represents over 45 of the world’s leading internet companies, including Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Uber, Airbnb and others.
We support a modern, national privacy law that provides people meaningful control over the data they provide to companies so they can make the most informed choices about how that data is used, seen, and shared.
“Any national privacy framework should provide the same protections for people’s data across industries, regardless of whether it is gathered offline or online.”
Americans will benefit most from a federal approach to privacy – as opposed to a patchwork of state laws – that protects their privacy regardless of where they live. If someone in New York is video chatting with their grandmother in Florida, they should both benefit from the same privacy protections.
It’s also important to consider that all companies – both online and offline – use and collect data. Any national privacy framework should provide the same protections for people’s data across industries, regardless of whether it is gathered offline or online.
Two other important pieces of any federal privacy law include user expectations and the context in which data is shared with third parties. Expectations may vary based on a person’s relationship with a company, the service they expect to receive, and the sensitivity of the data they’re sharing. For example, you expect a car rental company to be able to track the location of the rented vehicle that doesn’t get returned. You don’t expect the car rental company to track your real-time location and sell that data to the highest bidder. Additionally, the same piece of data can have different sensitivities depending on the context in which it’s used or shared. For example, your name on a business card may not be as sensitive as your name on the sign in sheet at an addiction support group meeting.
This is a unique time in Washington as there is bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress as well as in the administration for a federal privacy law. Our industry is committed to working with policymakers and other stakeholders to find an American approach to privacy that protects individuals’ privacy and allows companies to innovate and develop products people love.
Johnny Ryan
Dr. Johnny Ryan FRHistS is Chief Policy & Industry Relations Officer at Brave. His previous roles include Head of Ecosystem at PageFair, and Chief Innovation Officer of The Irish Times. He has a PhD from the University of Cambridge, and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
Tech companies will probably have to adapt to two privacy trends.
“As lawmakers and regulators in Europe and in the United States start to think “purpose specification” as a tool for anti-trust enforcement, tech giants should beware.”
First, the GDPR is emerging as a de facto international standard.
In the coming years, the application of GDPR-like laws for commercial use of consumers’ personal data in the EU, Britain (post-EU), Japan, India, Brazil, South Korea, Malaysia, Argentina, and China bring more than half of global GDP under a similar standard.
Whether this emerging standard helps or harms United States firms will be determined by whether the United States enacts and actively enforces robust federal privacy laws. Unless there is a federal GDPR-like law in the United States, there may be a degree of friction and the potential of isolation for United States companies.
However, there is an opportunity in this trend. The United States can assume the global lead by doing two things. First, enact a federal law that borrows from the GDPR, including a comprehensive definition of “personal data”, and robust “purpose specification”. Second, invest in world-leading regulation that pursues test cases, and defines practical standards. Cutting edge enforcement of common principles-based standards is de facto leadership.
Second, privacy and antitrust law are moving closer to each other, and might squeeze big tech companies very tightly indeed.
Big tech companies “cross-use” user data from one part of their business to prop up others. The result is that a company can leverage all the personal information accumulated from its users in one line of business, and for one purpose, to dominate other lines of business too.
This is likely to have anti-competitive effects. Rather than competing on the merits, the company can enjoy the unfair advantage of massive network effects even though it may be starting from scratch in a new line of business. This stifles competition and hurts innovation and consumer choice.
Antitrust authorities in other jurisdictions have addressed this. In 2015, the Belgian National Lottery was fined for re-using personal information acquired through its monopoly for a different, and incompatible, line of business.
As lawmakers and regulators in Europe and in the United States start to think “purpose specification” as a tool for anti-trust enforcement, tech giants should beware.
John Miller
John Miller is the VP for Global Policy and Law at the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), a D.C. based advocate group for the high tech sector. Miller leads ITI’s work on cybersecurity, privacy, surveillance, and other technology and digital policy issues.
Data has long been the lifeblood of innovation. And protecting that data remains a priority for individuals, companies and governments alike. However, as times change and innovation progresses at a rapid rate, it’s clear the laws protecting consumers’ data and privacy must evolve as well.
“Data has long been the lifeblood of innovation. And protecting that data remains a priority for individuals, companies and governments alike.”
As the global regulatory landscape shifts, there is now widespread agreement among business, government, and consumers that we must modernize our privacy laws, and create an approach to protecting consumer privacy that works in today’s data-driven reality, while still delivering the innovations consumers and businesses demand.
More and more, lawmakers and stakeholders acknowledge that an effective privacy regime provides meaningful privacy protections for consumers regardless of where they live. Approaches, like the framework ITI released last fall, must offer an interoperable solution that can serve as a model for governments worldwide, providing an alternative to a patchwork of laws that could create confusion and uncertainty over what protections individuals have.
Companies are also increasingly aware of the critical role they play in protecting privacy. Looking ahead, the tech industry will continue to develop mechanisms to hold us accountable, including recommendations that any privacy law mandate companies identify, monitor, and document uses of known personal data, while ensuring the existence of meaningful enforcement mechanisms.
Nuala O’Connor
Nuala O’Connor is president and CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology, a global nonprofit committed to the advancement of digital human rights and civil liberties, including privacy, freedom of expression, and human agency. O’Connor has served in a number of presidentially appointed positions, including as the first statutorily mandated chief privacy officer in U.S. federal government when she served at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. O’Connor has held senior corporate leadership positions on privacy, data, and customer trust at Amazon, General Electric, and DoubleClick. She has practiced at several global law firms including Sidley Austin and Venable. She is an advocate for the use of data and internet-enabled technologies to improve equity and amplify marginalized voices.
For too long, Americans’ digital privacy has varied widely, depending on the technologies and services we use, the companies that provide those services, and our capacity to navigate confusing notices and settings.
“Americans deserve comprehensive protections for personal information – protections that can’t be signed, or check-boxed, away.”
In 2019, the legal landscape for data privacy is changing, and so is the public perception of how companies handle data. As more information comes to light about the effects of companies’ data practices and myriad stewardship missteps, Americans are surprised and shocked about what they’re learning. They’re increasingly paying attention, and questioning why they are still overburdened and unprotected. And with intensifying scrutiny by the media, as well as state and local lawmakers, companies are recognizing the need for a clear and nationally consistent set of rules.
Personal privacy is the cornerstone of the digital future people want. Americans deserve comprehensive protections for personal information – protections that can’t be signed, or check-boxed, away. The Center for Democracy & Technology wants to help craft those legal principles to solidify Americans’ digital privacy rights for the first time.
Chris Baker
Chris Baker is Senior Vice President and General Manager of EMEA at Box.
Last year saw data privacy hit the headlines as businesses and consumers alike were forced to navigate the implementation of GDPR. But it’s far from over.
“…customers will have trust in a business when they are given more control over how their data is used and processed”
Starting with the U.S., 2019 will see larger corporations opt-in to GDPR to support global business practices. At the same time, local data regulators will lift large sections of the EU legislative framework and implement these rules in their own countries. 2018 was the year of GDPR in Europe, and 2019 be the year of GDPR globally.
Christopher Wolf
Christopher Wolf is the Founder and Chair of the Future of Privacy Forum think tank, and is senior counsel at Hogan Lovells focusing on internet law, privacy and data protection policy.
With the EU GDPR in effect since last May (setting a standard other nations are emulating),
with the adoption of a highly-regulatory and broadly-applicable state privacy law in California last Summer (and similar laws adopted or proposed in other states), and with intense focus on the data collection and sharing practices of large tech companies, the time may have come where Congress will adopt a comprehensive federal privacy law. Complicating the adoption of a federal law will be the issue of preemption of state laws and what to do with the highly-developed sectoral laws like HIPPA and Gramm-Leach-Bliley. Also to be determined is the expansion of FTC regulatory powers. Regardless of the outcome of the debate over a new federal privacy law, the issue of the privacy and protection of personal data is unlikely to recede.
“Regardless of the outcome of the debate over a new federal privacy law, the issue of the privacy and protection of personal data is unlikely to recede.”
from TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2MDE9ws
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