ProPublica takes an in-depth look at data brokers, companies that compile information on individuals and the sell or use that data for marketing or other purposes:

Data companies are scooping up enormous amounts of information about almost every American. They sell information about whether you’re pregnant or divorced or trying to lose weight, about how rich you are and what kinds of cars you have. [...]

But many people still don’t even know that data brokers exist.

Here’s a look at what we know about the consumer data industry.

How much do these companies know about individual people?

They start with the basics, like names, addresses and contact information, and add on demographics, like age, race, occupation and “education level,” according to consumer data firm Acxiom’s overview of its various categories.

But that’s just the beginning: The companies collect lists of people experiencing “life-event triggers” like getting married, buying a home, sending a kid to college — or even getting divorced. Read more »

Salon takes a look at Garret Keizer’s book, “Privacy,” and discusses the idea of privacy and why it is important:

The greatest threat to privacy in contemporary America is a pervasive, shrugging indifference. Many (though not all) citizens are willing to give up a certain amount of their personal information to obtain credit cards, rent movies, post photos on Facebook and look at Web pages. After all, if you’re not doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide? At least that’s the logic flitting through many minds as they prepare to order groceries online or download the sequel to “Fifty Shades of Grey” onto their Kindles.

Garret Keizer’s slim, eloquent “Privacy” is a cri de coeur against this state of affairs, less a book of facts and theories than a series of provocative juxtapositions and suggestive arguments. It encourages its readers to reframe how they think of privacy before it’s too late. Read it to jolt your imagination into new territory, and to understand why the privacy that many of us sacrifice so readily ought to be held more dear.

Take, for example, the advantages listed in my first paragraph, conveniences for which many of us blithely trade our privacy online. They allow us to enjoy a film without having to share the theater with annoying popcorn-munchers, to avoid standing in line at the drugstore while holding over-the-counter hemorrhoid medication and to read that “Fifty Shades” e-book on the subway in confidence that our fellow passengers will learn nothing of our taste in smut. In contrast to the people poised at our elbows to snoop, interfere or judge, the corporations who track our consumption of these items seem so remote. But, as Keizer points out, “in attempting to hide from our neighbors, we put ourselves more at the mercy of opportunistic strangers.” [...] Read more »

PCWorld reports on five ways in which your online privacy could be invaded:

These days, you need a healthy dose of naiveté to think that your personal data isn’t routinely bought, sold or tracked online. Tracking cookies are the norm on popular websites, and tech giants such as Google and Facebook have a reputation for mishandling and/or overcollecting users’ personal data.

But while those issues receive lots of attention, corporations and governments may keep an eye on you in other, lesser-known ways. Here are five online privacy intrusions that you might not know about.

The Government Might Be Building a File on You

The idea that government agents are reading your email messages and listening to your phone calls sounds like the stuff of conspiracy theorists, but saner minds claim that it’s possible. According to several former National Security Agency employees-turned-whistleblowers, the government is building a dossier on practically every U.S. citizen, drawing on information from e-mails and phone calls. And as Wired has reported, the NSA is building a massive spy center to sift through all the data and figure out who’s a threat. [...] Read more »

The Wall Street Journal reports that, because of the rising popularity of electronic readers such as Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Apple’s iPad and other devices, publishers and retailers have a large amount of data about individuals’ reading habits. This has implications for the privacy of individuals’ reading habits:

In the past, publishers and authors had no way of knowing what happens when a reader sits down with a book. Does the reader quit after three pages, or finish it in a single sitting? Do most readers skip over the introduction, or read it closely, underlining passages and scrawling notes in the margins? Now, e-books are providing a glimpse into the story behind the sales figures, revealing not only how many people buy particular books, but how intensely they read them. [...]

But the rise of digital books has prompted a profound shift in the way we read, transforming the activity into something measurable and quasi-public.

The major new players in e-book publishing—Amazon, Apple and Google—can easily track how far readers are getting in books, how long they spend reading them and which search terms they use to find books. Book apps for tablets like the iPad, Kindle Fire and Nook record how many times readers open the app and how much time they spend reading. Retailers and some publishers are beginning to sift through the data, gaining unprecedented insight into how people engage with books. [...] Read more »

A couple of weeks ago, I posted an op-ed by Don Tapscott discussing the right of privacy in the digital age, when technology has made it easy to broadly share data. He argued that everyone should have “a personal privacy strategy.” That was part one of a three-part series. In part two, Tapscott asks “Can we retain privacy in the era of Big Data?”

Privacy is nothing if not the freedom to be let alone, to experiment and to make mistakes, to forget and to start anew, to act according to conscience, and to be free from the oppressive scrutiny and opinions of others.

It may seem an odd notion today, but in its infancy the Internet was a favorite refuge for many seeking privacy. A famous New Yorkercartoon published almost 20 years ago featured two dogs sitting in front of a computer, with one saying to the other: “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”

Today such anonymity is essentially non-existent. Practical obscurity – the basis for privacy norms throughout history – is fast disappearing. Our society is collectively creating, storing and communicating information at nearly exponential rates of growth. Most of this data is personally identifiable, and third parties control much of it. This personal data will be archived online forever and be instantly searchable, and few appreciate how many ways this data might be used to harm us. Read more »

In an opinion column at the Washington Post, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley discussing how the United States’ expanding security powers can affect individual privacy and liberties:

Every year, the State Department issues reports on individual rights in other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been taken to task for undermining due process. Other countries have been condemned for the use of secret evidence and torture.

Even as we pass judgment on countries we consider unfree, Americans remain confident that any definition of a free nation must include their own — the land of free. Yet, the laws and practices of the land should shake that confidence. In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The most recent example of this was the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31, which allows for the indefinite detention of citizens. At what point does the reduction of individual rights in our country change how we define ourselves?

While each new national security power Washington has embraced was controversial when enacted, they are often discussed in isolation. But they don’t operate in isolation. They form a mosaic of powers under which our country could be considered, at least in part, authoritarian. Americans often proclaim our nation as a symbol of freedom to the world while dismissing nations such as Cuba and China as categorically unfree. Yet, objectively, we may be only half right. Those countries do lack basic individual rights such as due process, placing them outside any reasonable definition of “free,” but the United States now has much more in common with such regimes than anyone may like to admit. [...] Read more »