Can We Trust Tech Companies?

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released in March 2018, fewer Americans trust Facebook than other tech companies when it comes to obeying laws protecting personal information.

The poll found that only 41 percent of Americans trust Facebook to obey U.S. privacy laws, considerably less than other major tech companies that gather user data. By comparison, 66 percent said they trust Amazon, 62 percent trust Google and 60 percent feel they can rely on Microsoft to keep their data safe. Apple and Yahoo! also had higher levels of trust at 53 and 48 percent respectively. (Forbes, March 27, 2018)

If you are not paying for the product, then you are the product. Tech companies - like all companies - are in business to make money. If you are using a free product or service from that company, then the company does not make a profit from your use of that product or service. To stay in business, turn a profit, and grow a company can either sell advertising - presenting those, often targeted, ads to users of their products and services; or the company can sell its customers' information to others for research and marketing purposes.

Called before Congress this week, Mark Zuckerberg tried to present Facebook’s approach to user data as open and transparent. In question after question, he focused on the privacy choices available to users, and their ownership over all the data they share - and it wasn’t all wrong. Facebook has data because users share it (mostly). Users control that data and can review it or delete it whenever they want (with a few exceptions). And if you delete your account, (almost) all of that data will disappear from Facebook’s servers within 90 days. None of it’s false, but as the parentheses should tell you, it is incomplete - and by the second day of hearings, members of Congress were starting to catch on.

Facebook keeps non-user data attached to something Hill calls a shadow profile - a reliable bank of information held in reserve so that, if you ever do sign up for Facebook, the company will know exactly who to recommend as friends. Facebook’s collection of data on non-Facebook users opens up a world of questions about what data is and isn’t covered by Zuckerberg’s vision of user consent and control.