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< | Maya Uchima
What to Learn From the European Union’s Recent Reforms on Data Privacy | >
> | The Internet and Capitalist Gain: The Cost of Lunch | | | | |
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< | The Privacy Infringement Problem in the US
It has become more and more apparent in today’s society that the concept of privacy has been eroded, redefined, and curtailed as the power of corporations have dominated. Consumers must actively and aggressively opt-out from having private information logged and stored by websites. Oftentimes, consumers are not given the option to prevent companies from collecting data from them. For example, EPIC’s lawsuit against Google, alleging that Google has been tracking in-store purchases by gathering information from credit card transactions and using that data to target ads specific to each consumer. Not only can purchases (on and offline) reveal one’s tastes and interests, but searches on the internet or viewing trends logged by a cable box can provide valuable data that can be used in profitable marketing strategies. There is an argument that these targeted ads serve only to make life easier, more convenient, and tailored. Nevertheless, with no choice given to the consumer, the discomfort one feels due to the ruthless invasion of private life far outweighs the possible benefit of finding out about a sale at a preferred shoe store. It feels like the fight for privacy has succumbed to the allure of a blinded trust in these mega corporations. | >
> | It was fall 1990. I was a freshman at Syracuse and my high school girlfriend was a freshman at Dartmouth. In one of her letters, she described this system called “ELM” that would allow us to write each other through our university personal computers. I was intrigued and slightly skeptical (I had always thought of myself as the more tech-savvy in the relationship). The next day, an assistant from Syracuse’s personal computer (PC) lab demoed the “ELM” system and I sent my girlfriend an email message - my first experience with the Internet. | | | | |
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< | Insufficient Protections
The US is not without any protections for the consumer. The Fourth Amendment outlines broadly the right against unreasonable search and seizures. This sets the foundation for arguing for the consumer’s right to protect his data and his online choices. There exist also the Wiretap Laws, Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and most importantly, the FTC Act of 1914, which seeks to protect consumers from unfair or unreasonable business practices. The FTC is granted the power to pursue a corporation for questionable behavior, but unless the FTC deems the behavior worthy of an investigation, the private consumer is left with scant recourse. Other regulations tend to be too specific, such as a regulation on just medical data disclosure or just financial data protection. So what can the US do to begin providing more coverage for the consumer? | >
> | Columbia Professor Eben Moglen would have us to believe that the Internet’s architects designed it with the altruistic goal of reaching, and then availing education to, every human on earth and that corporations, such as Google and Facebook, have depredated this ideal in pursuit of “capitalist gain.” That might be true. But, it is true also that, without the pursuit of “gain,” the Internet would have never experienced such a colossal expansion in global usage. This “gain” is a quid-pro-quo or cost of corporate contribution to the Internet’s growth. | | | | |
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< | Possible Pointers in the EU
The EU’s recent policies may shed some light for possible next steps. Regulation 679 (2016), also known as GDPR, will go into effect across the member states of the EU (including the UK) in May 2018. It hopes to strengthen supervision and protection of consumer data. These new policies apply to both “controllers” and “processors” of data who work in conjunction to carry out any activity concerning the usage of personal data. The regulation sets out higher punishments if there is a breach and increased legal compliance regulations, including keeping more strict activity logs. It also defines “personal data” more broadly, now including IP addresses, where before it only recognized personally identifiable information (names, social security, etc.). The EU also issued Directive 680 (2016), the Law Enforcement Directive, last year. Directives, although not treated as immediate and binding legislation as regulations are, act as general guidelines for member states, which in turn create internal policies to fall into compliance with the overarching goal of the directive. It states that data can only be used in the process of preventing or investigating crimes and proceeds to define the limitations and scope of what constitutes a crime more clearly. Administrative agencies will provide independent supervision over law enforcement actions and certain remedies will be made available for the infringement of privacy if it is breached unfairly or disproportionately. | >
> | The Internet is the world-wide, public network of interconnected computer networks. The modern-day Internet is commonly thought to have descended from the ARPAnet, a network developed by the U.S. Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). In February 1958, the U.S. government created DARPA, after being caught off-guard by the Soviet Union’s launch of an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile and the world's first unmanned satellites, Sputnik 1 and 2. In 1962, amidst fears of what might happen if the Soviet Union attacked the nation’s telephone system, a scientist from M.I.T. proposed, as a solution, a “galactic network” of computers that could talk to each other (later referred to as ARPAnet).
Although a network in name, the Internet is a creature of the computer. During the early computing age, computers were incredibly expensive to produce and operate. An early computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator Analyzer and Computer (ENIAC), cost $500,000 ($6,781,798 in today’s money), weighed 30 tons, covered nearly 2,000 square feet, and had almost 18,000 vacuum tubes. The pursuit of “gain” motivated “for-profit” corporations to produce smaller, faster and more affordable computers, with more memory and user-friendly software.
In 1948, Bell Laboratories introduced the transistor, an electronic device carrying and amplifying electrical current, but much smaller than the vacuum tube. Ten years later, scientists at Texas Instruments and Fairchild Semiconductor invented the integrated-circuit, incorporating the computer’s electrical parts into a single silicon chip.
In 1971, an Intel engineer developed the microprocessor, one of the most significant advancements in computer technology. Before this invention, computers needed a separate integrated-circuit chip for each function (hence the need for such large machines). Microprocessors were the size of a thumbnail and could run the computer’s programs and manage its data. Intel’s first microprocessor, the 4004, had the same computing power as the massive ENIAC.
These innovations led to the birth of the small, relatively inexpensive “microcomputer” now known as the “personal computer.” In 1974, a corporation called Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) introduced Altair, a mail-order build-it-yourself PC kit. In 1975, MITS hired two young programmers to adapt the BASIC programming language for the Altair. In April 1975, the two young programmers formed Microsoft, responsible for the hugely popular Windows operating systems. By some estimates, Windows runs more than 90% of all PCs.
Over the next two years, two engineers in Silicon Valley built the Apple I and Apple II PCs, with more memory and a cheaper microprocessor than the Altair, a monitor, and a keyboard. Innovations like the “graphical user interface,” allowing users to select icons on a monitor screen instead of writing complicated commands, and the computer mouse made PCs more user-friendly.
Bell Laboratories, Texas Instruments, Fairchild Semiconductor, Intel, MITS, Microsoft and Apple were all “for-profit” corporations. These corporations and their inventions spearheaded the PC revolution.
Soon, other “for-profit” corporations, like Xerox, Tandy, Commodore and IBM, had entered the PC market.
PCs, networked over the global telephony infrastructure, created the Internet we have today. Innovations in personal computing facilitated the Internet’s expansion to 201 countries and to 3.8 billion or 51.7% of the human population. There might have been an Internet without PCs, but it would have been uninteresting, and probably confined to the research community and computer scientists.
In my Syracuse finance classes, professors inculcated the axiom that “for-profit” corporations exist for the sole purpose of maximizing shareholder wealth. According to Columbia alumnus, Milton Friedman, “[t]here is . . . only one social responsibility of business- to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, engages in open and free competition, without deception or fraud."
Moreover, shareholder wealth maximization is the law. For decades, Delaware courts, which dominate U.S. corporate jurisprudence, have espoused the tenet that the maximization of shareholder wealth must be every “for-profit” corporation’s ultimate objective. In essence, a corporation that pursues “capitalist gain” is merely following its legal mandate and complying with contractual obligations to its shareholders. As Senator Franken reminded us, “it is literally malfeasance for a corporation not to do everything it legally can to maximize its profits.”
No doubt, the U.S. government, through DARPA, funded some research and technological developments that made the ARPAnet, and eventually the Internet, possible. However, in many cases, this funding was provided to private “for-profit” corporations, like Xerox. It was the desire for “capitalist gain” that led these corporations to develop the technology products commissioned by DARPA.
Having advanced the Internet architects’ goal of reaching every human on earth, it should not come as a surprise that “for-profit” corporations would then seek to exploit the Internet for “gain.” These corporations are simply following market and legal expectations. The “gain” sought is a cost of the corporations’ facilitation of the Internet’s expansion. As Friedman stated, “[t]here’s no such thing as a free lunch.” | | | | |
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< | Not a Perfect System
The EU’s continued interest in protecting consumers stems most likely from a stronger belief that privacy is a fundamental human right, a value not quite shared yet in the US. There have been many theories for why Europeans in general tend to want to shield their private lives more so than citizens in the US. One of the most dominant theories states that the trauma from during the Holocaust when Nazi officials would use school and bank records to find the names and addresses of Jewish people in the area has strengthened the necessity of protections for personal information.
However, the EU system is not perfect. Their policies work mainly because of a heightened sense of trust among citizens in their individual member states’ governments. The US government has struggled with its citizens to maintain a semblance of respect for privacy and with the reveal in 2013 of PRISM being used by the NSA to monitor and track the data from internet transactions, the people’s distrust of the government has skyrocketed. To call for US citizens to all of the sudden embrace government regulation and surveillance as guardians of their data against corporations would be too large a bridge to gap, and would, in fact, lead to many other problems, as the government and its subsidiaries have proven to be a dubious and mysterious entity when it comes to maintaining boundaries with its citizens. The key takeaway from the EU reforms would be the shift in mentality towards viewing privacy as a fundamental right to be protected at all costs. The EU has instituted independent bodies to oversee the uses of data and has ensured steep remedies for breaches. These steps will not end the problems with private data infringement, but may begin the deterring process. |
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