The danger good authorities pose to privacy
Big companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon have recently created a new tech craze, home smart speakers. These devices are becoming increasingly popular and have made their way into over 120 million U.S. homes. These devices are designed to respond to voice activated commands, prompted by a keyword such as “Alexa”. This means they are always listening and often record a lot more audio than just the users commands. Whenever these speakers hear a word similar to their keyword they begin recording. This has sparked increased privacy concerns especially now that the government is more and more often requesting these recordings from these companies.
This issue made me think about how it relates to the dynamics of the search industry we discussed in class. Because these tech companies now are making so much money off of advertising rather than their actual products have an invested interest in surveilling its customers as much as possible to use their info for advertising. The more data industries collect the better they can predict what they’ll buy and how much it’s worth to them, which helps them sey market clearing prices. By using this system, they have become extremely profitable but pose increased privacy risks. Despite all these invasions of privacy, which many users agree the dangers outweigh the benefits of customized ads, most people still use them because of the convenience of the tech. Because these companies are such good authorities, users are willing to sign away their privacy for access. This issue is very controversial today because companies have little incentive to protect privacy when they can profit it off it, and the government won’t protect privacy because they can use it for surveillance.