Today's internet not 'sustainable,' experts warn - Domination by only two companies - Google & Facebook
Today's internet not 'sustainable,' experts warn
On 06/17/2018 @ 4:12 pm
The digital world has been flooded with concerns in
recent months over the power of the giant tech companies, particularly Google
and Facebook, over the flow of information.
Conservatives in America have expressed alarm, and in
Europe, a leader of the Brexit movement has accused Facebook of “doctoring” the
news.
Now Congress has been told that the “digital ecosystem”
that exists today is unworkable.
“Two companies dominate the market. The privacy of
internet users is under assault. The revenue model that sustained journalism is
broken. The ad platforms are manipulated by foreign adversaries. Secrecy and
complexity are increasing as accountability is diminished,” said the Electronic
Privacy Information Center in a statement delivered to members of Congress.
“It would be foolish to imagine that the current model is
sustainable.”
The statement was delivered to members of the House
Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Digital Commerce &
Consumer Protection in connection with a hearing on the “ecosystem.”
The letter explained: “Today’s digital advertising
techniques are very different from traditional advertising models. In the
analog world, consumers could readily identify the placement of an ad, the
source and its purpose. There was little need for advertisers to gather
personal data from users. Perhaps most critically, advertising supported
editorial content. Advertising made possible the publication of daily news.
Traditional advertising sustained a healthy ecosystem that also made possible
the production of news without government subsidy. Much of that has changed,”
the letter said.
“There are many problems today with the Digital
Advertising Ecosystems – profiling and tracking of internet users, increasing
concentration of providers (Google and Facebook), the loss of support for
editorial content, discriminatory practices and redlining, preferencing the
advertiser’s products over competitor’s, and political ads purchased by foreign
advertisers intended [to] undermine democratic elections.
“It didn’t have to be this way. More active regulation by
the government could have sustained digital advertising models that were good
advertisers and businesses, and good also for consumers, journalism, and
democracy.”
The letter explained an early system, called DoubleClick,
protected consumers’ privacy, but it later was acquired by Google, and the
Federal Trade Commission approved the deal despite EPIC warnings about one
company having “access to more information about the internet activities of
consumers than any other company in the world.”
“Much of what we predicted happened. Google broke many of
the agreements to protect privacy that DoubleClick had established,” the
group’s letter said.
The next “great damage” was done when Google moved from
contextual advertising to behavioral advertising.
Contextual advertising simple shows products in
newspapers or on the web. But behavioral advertising “targets the consumer
directly. It relies on deep profiles. It provides no benefit to content
providers, such as news organizations. In fact, the … model attacks the revenue
model that has sustained news organizations in the United States since the
early days.”
This system uses those algorithms that consider age,
race, religion, nationality and other factors.
The letter says while advertising should provide
consumers with information about products, Google and Facebook now “are
providing advertisers information about consumers who have become the product.
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