Sustainability of Data Rights

Bloomberg News. “Google Flips the Switch on Its next Big Money Maker: Maps.”

AdAge, Crain Communications, 10 Apr. 2019, https://adage.com/article/digital/google-flips-switch-its-next-big-money-maker-maps/2163976.

This source is discussing the process by which Google is beginning to monetize its maps platform, from ads to requiring payment for startups to use their service. It also briefly discusses Google using people’s locations and search history to recommend different restaurants to individuals. Google is being not-so-transparent about what processes go on behind the scenes to get these recommendations. The collection and use of consumers’ map data are extremely relevant to the topic of data rights and privacy. Just because one uses a certain map system isn’t equivalent to them consenting to have their location data being used commercially.

Chatterjee, Sheshadri. “Is Data Privacy a Fundamental Right in India?” International

Journal of Law and Management, vol. 61, no. 1, 11 Feb. 2019, pp. 170–190., http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/10.1108/IJLMA-01-2018-0013.

This journal discusses the possible outcome of a recent internet privacy legislation passed in India and the effect it will have on everyday citizens. This effect is talked about in the context of the massive growth of the internet has seen in India over the last couple of years. The same methods couldn’t be applied in the U.S. and Europe though. This is because in India they are preventative measures, not also undoing the years of working in the opposite direction. While this study only focuses specifically on India, the idea behind it could set a precedent for the type of legislation required to solve this problem. India is the fastest growing and one of the quickest technologizing countries in the world, a case study on this type of country yields a lot of information in the way of online privacy legislation.

Clements, J. “Top Internet Companies: Global Market Value 2019.” Statista.com,

Statista, 11 Sept. 2019, https://www.statista.com/statistics/277483/market-value-of-the-largest-internet-companies-worldwide/.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has the highest market value of any internet company in the world. This is due to both savvy business practices as well as their acquisition of many other internet companies. This figure is even more impressive when compared to the second-highest internet company, Facebook, which is worth approximately $250 billion less than Alphabet. This graph shows how much money there is to be made in the business of human data. Especially when it is seen that Facebook alone is worth more than every other internet company on the list combined (other than Alphabet).

Desjardins, Jeff. “How Google Retains More Than 90% of Market Share.”

BusinessInsider.com, Insider Inc., 23 Apr. 2018, https://www.businessinsider.com/how-google-retains-More-than-90-of-market-share-2018-4.

This article describes the monopoly that Google has on the industry of online searching. With a market share of 90%, the companies dominance is unrivaled, and when money is made off the data of those on a service, it is hard to catch up when one service has all the people. It also discusses how unlikely it would be for another engine to surpass Google, not only due to lack of resources but also because Google is so ingrained in the social consciousness of the world for a product to overtake it it would have to be significantly better. This article is extremely relevant to the government regulation side of the topic. It shows how Google has been allowed to monopolize the industry of searching and data collection without any regulation over them, and this problem then leads to the abuse of all of this data in arguably unethical ways.

Graham-Harrison, Emma, and Carole Cadwalladr. “Revealed: 50 Million Facebook

Profiles Harvested for Cambridge Analytica in Major Data Breach.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 17 Mar. 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analytica-facebook-influence-us-election.

This article details the items that were released by a whistleblower at Cambridge Analytica. Information such as how the company collected the data used, how it was used, and who was working with them and taking advantage of this illegally collected data. The article also goes in-depth on the role Facebook played in the allowing of Cambridge Analytica to gather all of the data they ended up using for their human internet profiles. The Cambridge Analytica scandal was the first major scandal regarding the use of user data in a way similar to this, and it started an international debate on the rights of internet privacy. But, like everything else in the world, it was promptly forgotten. To not discuss this scandal would be telling an incomplete story of the consequences of our current system.

Granville, Kevin. “Facebook and Cambridge Analytica: What You Need to Know as

Fallout Widens.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 19 Mar. 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook-cambridge-analytica-explained.html.

This is another article discussing the scandal, but it is discussing it in a more bulleted and direct way. It details how Cambridge Analytica was able to use the information gained from Facebook to create personal data profiles of those people and from those profiles, they were able to manipulate people’s opinions without their knowledge. They would tailor advertisements specifically to certain subsets of people to make them more effective, thus more likely to pull your vote. This is the foundation of what the problem-solution essay research is about. If this should be legal and if we should have a say in it. The counter-argument would be that these people gave up their information voluntarily by posting it online, but it can be argued concent should be required for data extraction for these purposes.

Great Hack, The. Directed and Produced by Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim,

2019. Netflix, Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/title/80117542.

This a documentary detailing the inner workings of the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower case from the perspective of another whistleblower on the company. It heavily discusses the timeline of the data collection and the use of said data in the U.S. and U.K. elections. The documentary gives an in-depth look into the world of big data and the unethical possibilities for its use. Once again, the Cambridge Analytica scandal was an extremely big deal for this field of research, and any extensive resource on it will be highly valuable because of how hard it is to gain information on these companies and their data collecting techniques. It is also a very important documentary from a human perspective, showing you just how every bit of information you put online can work against you.

Popken, Ben. “Google Sells the Future, Powered by Your Personal Data.”

NBCNews.com, NBC Universal News Group, 10 May 2018, https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/google-Sells-future-powered-your-personal-data-n870501.

This article discusses the ways Google collects user data for the use of targeted advertising services in order to maximize the profit of both themselves and their clients. It also discusses just the sheer volume of information that the company has in comparison to other online media companies because of how integrated with our lives they are. Some of the sources of Data are people’s search data, Gmail, even locations. This article sheads light on just how much Google is monitoring us in our everyday life. This type of information is essential for an analysis of the effect of data collection on people.

United States. Senate. Committee on Energy and Commerce. Facebook: Use of

Consumer Data Apr. 10, 2018. 115th Cong. Washington: GPO, 2018 (Testimony of Mark Zuckerberg Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Facebook) https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/04-10-18%20Zuckerberg%20Testimony.pdf.

This is a summary of Mark Zuckerberg’s ten-hour testimony before the senate on his and Facebook’s role in the Cambridge Analytica case. He discusses his relationship with the company and his knowledge of what was happening as it happened. If we assume he is telling the truth (a pretty safe assumption because otherwise, he’d be committing federal perjury) this is one of the most de facto, reliable sources of info about the relationship between Facebook and Cambridge, from Facebook’s side that is. The bias he may have had to protect himself and his own company should not be ignored. This summary could be one of the most valuable resources I have access to for this paper simply because it is a primary source of one side of the interactions that happened at the center of the main scandal in this area.

“The World's Most Valuable Resource Is No Longer Oil, but Data.” The Economist,

The Economist Newspaper, 6 May 2017, https://www.economist.com/leaders/2017/05/06/the-worlds-most-valuable-resource-is-no-longer-oil-but-data. 

This article seeks to show the idea that data has become the most valuable commodity in today’s world. It relates data and internet companies of today to the oil barons of the early 1900s and attempts to understand why they haven’t been treated the same way by the government. It also points to the sheer amount of information out there as a reason for its increase in value, and the reason for this is with more data more accurate predictions can be made, and better-targeted advertising is possible. This article is a very good baseline source for the importance of protecting our data if it is that valuable to these companies why shouldn’t we get a say in keeping it for ourselves. These companies take data without most people’s knowledge and profit billions off of it, this article shows how deliberate this process is and how little the government is doing to stop it.