Data and Goliath (53 page)

different offers based on:
Bill McGee (3 Apr 2013), “Do travel deals change based on your browsing history?”
USA Today
, http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/columnist/mcgee/2013/04/03/do-travel-deals-change-based-on-your-browsing-history/2021993.

Many sites estimate:
Michael Fertik (15 Jan 2013), “The rich see a different Internet than the poor,”
Scientific American
, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rich-see-different-internet-than-the-poor.

women feel less attractive on Mondays:
Lucia Moses (2 Oct 2013), “Marketers should take note of when women feel least attractive:
What messages to convey and when to send them,”
Adweek
, http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/marketers-should-take-note-when-women-feel-least-attractive-152753.
Kim Bates (4 Oct 2013), “Beauty vulnerability: What got lost in translation,”
Adweek
, http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/beauty-vulnerability-what-got-lost-translation-152909.

different ages and genders respond:
Frank N. Magid Associates (2011), “How America shops and spends 2011,” Newspaper
Association of America, http://www.naa.org/docs/newspapermedia/data/howamericashopsandspends_2011.pdf.
Nielsen (8 Mar 2013), “Does gender matter?” http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2013/does-gender-matter-.html.

Lenddo is a Philippine company:
Katie Lobosco (27 Aug 2013), “Facebook friends could change your credit score,” CNN,
http://money.cnn.com/2013/08/26/technology/social/facebook-credit-score.

American Express has reduced:
Carrie Teegardin (21 Dec 2008), “Card companies adjusting credit limits: For some,
lowering based on where they shop,”
Atlanta Journal-
Constitution
, https://web.archive.org/web/20110728060844/http://www.ajc.com/news/content/business/stories/2008/12/21/creditcards_1221.html.

the “panoptic sort”:
Oscar H. Gandy Jr. (1993),
The Panoptic Sort: A Political Economy of Personal Information
, Westview Press, http://books.google.com/books?id=wreFAAAAMAAJ.

power to use discriminatory criteria:
This paper discusses all the different ways companies can discriminate with big data.
Solon Barocas and Andrew D. Selbst (14 Sep 2014), “Big data’s disparate impact,” Social
Science Research Network, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2477899.

High-end restaurants:
Casey Johnston (13 Apr 2014), “When the restaurant you Googled Googles you back,”
Ars Technica
, http://arstechnica.com/staff/2014/04/when-the-restaurant-you-googled-googles-you-back.

If you allow your insurance company:
Hilary Osborne (13 Aug 2012), “Aviva to trial smartphone car insurance technology,”
Guardian
, http://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/aug/13/aviva-trial-smartphone-car-insurance-technology.
Randall Stross (25 Nov 2012), “So you’re a good driver? Let’s go to the monitor,”
New York Times
, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/business/seeking-cheaper-insurance-drivers-accept-monitoring-devices.html.
Brad Tuttle (6 Aug 2013), “Big data is my copilot: Auto insurers push devices that
track driving habits,”
Time
, http://business.time.com/2013/08/06/big-data-is-my-copilot-auto-insurers-push-devices-that-track-driving-habits.

distributing Fitbits to its employees:
Nancy Gohring (7 Jul 2014), “This company saved $300k on insurance by giving employees
Fitbits,”
CiteWorld,
http://www.citeworld.com/article/2450823/internet-of-things/appirio-fitbit-experiment.html.

several schools are requiring:
Lee Crane (5 Sep 2013), “Gym class is about to get even worse for the athletically
dis-inclined,”
Digital Trends
, http://www.digitaltrends.com/sports/gym-class-is-about-to-get-even-worse-for-the-athletically-dis-inclined.
Emily Miels (28 May 2014), “Heart rate monitors allow Memorial High School students
to get the most out of their workouts,”
Leader-Telegram
, http://www.leadertelegram.com/news/front_page/article_ec2f0b72-e627-11e3-ac95-0019bb2963f4.html.
Katie Wiedemann (14 Aug 2014), “Heart rate monitors now required in Dubuque P.E. classes,”
KCRG, http://www.kcrg.com/subject/news/heart-rate-monitors-now-required-in-dubuque-physical-education-classes-20140814.

Hewlett-Packard analyzed:
Joel Schechtman (14 Mar 2013), “Book: HP piloted program to predict which workers
would quit,”
Wall Street Journal
, http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2013/03/14/book-hp-piloted-program-to-predict-which-workers-would-quit.

Workplace surveillance is:
This paper gives an excellent overview of workplace
surveillance. Alex Roxenblat, Tamara Kneese, and danah boyd (8 Oct 2014), “Workplace
surveillance,”
Data and Society Research Institute
, http://www.datasociety.net/pubs/fow/WorkplaceSurveillance.pdf.

our employer is the most dangerous:
Ellen Messmer (31 Mar 2010), “Feel like you’re being watched at work? You may be
right,”
Network World
, http://www.networkworld.com/article/2205938/data-center/feel-like-you-re-being-watched-at-work--you-may-be-right.html.
Ann Bednarz (24 Feb 2011), “Pay no attention to that widget recording your every move,”
Network World
, http://www.networkworld.com/article/2200315/data-breach/pay-no-attention-to-that-widget-recording-your-every-move.html.
Josh Bersin (25 Jun 2014), “Quantified self: Meet the quantified employee,”
Forbes
, http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2014/06/25/quantified-self-meet-the-quantified-employee.

corporate electronic communications:
This is an excellent review of workplace monitoring techniques and their effects
on privacy. Corey A. Ciocchetti (2010), “The eavesdropping employer: A twenty-first
century framework for employee monitoring,” Daniels College of Business, University
of Denver, http://www.futureofprivacy.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/The_Eavesdropping_Employer_%20A_Twenty-First_Century_Framework.pdf.

new field called “workplace analytics”:
Don Peck (20 Nov 2013), “They’re watching you at work,”
Atlantic
, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/12/theyre-watching-you-at-work/354681.
Hannah Kuchler (17 Feb 2014), “Data pioneers watching us work,”
Financial Times
, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/d56004b0-9581-11e3-9fd6-00144feab7de.html.

For some people, that’s okay:
A friend told me about her feelings regarding personalized advertising. She said
that, as an older woman, she keeps getting ads for cosmetic medical procedures, drugs
for “old” diseases, and other things that serve as a constant reminder of her age.
She finds it unpleasant. Lynn Sudbury and Peter Simcock (2008), “The senior taboo?
Age based sales promotions, self-perceived age and the older consumer,”
European Advances in Consumer Research
8, http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/eacr/vol8/eacr_vol8_28.pdf.

people are refraining from looking up:
Deborah C. Peel (7 Feb 2014), “Declaration of Deborah C. Peel, M.D., for Patient
Privacy Rights Foundation in support of Plaintiffs’ Motion for Partial Summary Judgment,”
First Unitarian Church et al. v. National Security Agency et al.
(3:13-cv-03287 JSW), United States District Court for the Northern District of California,
https://www.eff.org/files/2013/11/06/allplaintiffsdeclarations.pdf.

surveillance data is being used:
Andrew Odlyzko (5–6 Jun 2014), “The end of privacy and the seeds of capitalism’s
destruction,” Privacy Law Scholars Conference, Washington, D.C., http://www.law.berkeley.edu/plsc.htm.

In their early days:
Paddy Kamen (5 Jul 2001), “So you thought search engines offer up neutral results?
Think again,”
Toronto Star
,
http://www.commercialalert.org/issues/culture/search-engines/so-you-thought-search-engines-offer-up-neutral-results-think-again.

search engines visually differentiated:
Gary Ruskin (16 Jul 2001), Letter to Donald Clark, US Federal Trade Commission, re:
Deceptive advertising complaint against AltaVista Co., AOL Time Warner Inc., Direct
Hit Technologies, iWon Inc., LookSmart Ltd., Microsoft Corp. and Terra Lycos S.A.,
Commercial Alert, http://www.commercialalert.org/PDFs/SearchEngines.pdf. Heather Hippsley
(27 Jun 2002), Letter to Gary Ruskin re: Complaint requesting investigation of various
Internet search engine companies for paid placement and paid inclusion programs, US
Federal Trade Commission, http://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/closing_letters/commercial-alert-response-letter/commercialalertletter.pdf.

Google is now accepting money:
Danny Sullivan (30 May 2012), “Once deemed evil, Google now embraces ‘paid inclusion,’”
Marketing Land
, http://marketingland.com/once-deemed-evil-google-now-embraces-paid-inclusion-13138.

FTC is again taking an interest:
Michael Cooney (25 Jun 2013), “FTC tells Google, Yahoo, Bing, others to better differentiate
ads in web content searches,”
Network
World
, http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/ftc-tells-google-yahoo-bing-others-better-differentiate-ads-web-content-searches.
Mary K. Engle (24 Jun 2013), “Letter re: Search engine advertising practices,” US
Federal Trade Commission, http://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/press-releases/ftc-consumer-protection-staff-updates-agencys-guidance-search-engine-industryon-need-distinguish/130625searchenginegeneralletter.pdf.

Payments for placement:
Josh Constine (3 Oct 2012), “Facebook now lets U.S. users pay $7 to promote posts
to the news feeds of more friends,”
Tech Crunch
, http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/03/us-promoted-posts.

increasing voter turnout:
Robert M. Bond et al. (13 Sep 2012), “A 61-million-person experiment in social influence
and political mobilization,”
Nature
489, http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7415/full/nature11421.html.

It would be hard to detect:
Jonathan Zittrain explores this possibility. Jonathan Zittrain (1 Jun 2014), “Facebook
could decide an election without anyone ever finding out,”
New Republic
, http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117878/information-fiduciary-solution-facebook-digital-gerrymandering.

Facebook could easily tilt:
Many US elections are very close. A 0.01% change would have elected Al Gore in 2
000
. In 2008, Al Franken beat Norm Coleman in the Minnesota Senate race by only 312 votes.

Google might do something similar:
Robert Epstein (23-26 May 2013), “Democracy at risk: Manipulating search rankings
can shift voters’ preferences substantially without their awareness,” 25th Annual
Meeting of the Association for Psychological Science, Washington, D.C., http://aibrt.org/downloads/EPSTEIN_and_Robertson_2013-Democracy_at_Risk-APS-summary-5-13.pdf.

sinister social networking platform:
“When the amount of information is so great, so transparent, so pervasive, you can
use absolutely nothing but proven facts and still engage in pure propaganda, pure
herding.” Dan Geer, quoted in Jonathan Zittrain (20 Jun 2014), “Engineering an election,”
Harvard Law Review Forum
127, http://harvardlawreview.org/2014/06/engineering-an-election.

China does this:
Ai Weiwei (17 Oct 2012), “China’s paid trolls: Meet the 50-Cent Party,”
New Statesman
, http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/politics/2012/10/china%E2%80%99s-paid-trolls-meet-50-cent-party.
Mara Hvistendahl (22 Aug 2014), “Study exposes Chinese censors’ deepest fears,”
Science
345, http://www.sciencemag.org/content/345/6199/859.full. Gary King, Jennifer Pan,
and Margaret E. Roberts (22 Aug 2014), “Reverse-engineering censorship in China: Randomized
experimentation and participant observation,”
Science
345, http://www.sciencemag.org/content/345/6199/1251722.

Samsung has done much:
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (16 Apr 2013), “Say it ain’t so, Samsung,”
Fortune
, http://fortune.com/2013/04/16/say-it-aint-so-samsung.

Many companies manipulate:
Bryan Horling and Matthew Kulick, (4 Dec 2009), “Personalized search for everyone,”
Google Official Blog
, http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/personalized-search-for-everyone.html. Tim
Adams (19 Jan 2013), “Google and the future of search: Amit Singhal and the Knowledge
Graph,”
Guardian
, http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jan/19/google-search-knowledge-graph-singhal-interview.

The first listing in a Google search:
Chitika Online Advertising Network (7 Jun 2013), “The value of Google result positioning,”
https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/239330/file-61331237-pdf/ChitikaInsights-ValueofGoogleResultsPositioning.pdf.

the Internet you see:
Joseph Turow (2013),
The Daily You: How the New Advertising Industry Is Defining Your Identity and Your
Worth
, Yale University Press, http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300165012.

the “filter bubble”:
Eli Pariser (2011),
The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You
, Penguin Books, http://www.thefilterbubble.com.

on a large scale it’s harmful:
Cass Sunstein (2009),
Republic.com 2.0
, Princeton University Press, http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8468.html.

We don’t want to live:
To be fair, this trend is older and more general than the Internet. Robert D. Putnam
(2
000
),
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
, Simon and Schuster, http://bowlingalone.com.