Facebook now tracks at least "52,000 unique attributes" to classify users. It can predict race, relationship status, personality, drug use, sexual orientation, and political leanings based only on "Like" clicks. Google's CEO admitted, "We know where you are. We know where you've been. We can more or less know what you're thinking about." Amazon and other e-books companies know how fast people read, if they like to skip pages, and whether or not they finish books. In the words of Al Gore, "we have a stalker economy."
In this second part of our series on data privacy, Lake Fellowship member Matthew Tift will talk about how social media and other technology companies track you, and how surveillance affects our daily lives. This discussion will be philosophical, not technical. We'll talk about First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. NSA and how surveillance relates to our UU principles. We'll discuss why you might want to consider avoiding "free" services that make you the product.
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