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→Excluded: Big companies are hoarding troves of data and smothering competition
: ''“With a ‘collect it all’ approach, you're not creating the clean data sets you need for AI and ML models.”'' - Jochai Ben-Avie, Head of International Policy, Mozilla
==== Exploited: The only thing not surveilled is how people’s data is used. ====
'''Invisible practices enable invisible human exploitation '''<br />
Whether someone is a user or a Mechanical Turk worker, their exploitation is invisible and many are unknowingly exposed to risk.
'''New data businesses are “accidentally” exploitative'''<br />
As new or transforming companies start to participate in a digital-first world, they have no idea where to start when it comes to data practices. They can either design their own, or rely on surveillant tech products from the big players.
'''Advertisers and publishers held hostage by ad tech'''<br />
There are few ad exchange alternatives.
''This pain is perpetuated by:''<br />
'''Opacity enables risky business''' <br />
The data supply chain is hidden by design, with the algorithms involved often black boxes. Invisible practices give big companies cover for shady behavior—from ad fraud to data breaches—and eschews conversations about ethics or regulation.
'''No knowledge means no power'''<br />
With the excuse that it’s “too complicated to understand,” companies’ lack of transparency fuels a debilitating information asymmetry: since people don’t know what’s happening, they can’t demand different practices (like they have for other exploitative supply chains).
'''Little value means little care'''<br />
Though people create the raw resource of data, they have no way to realize its value. Only companies can convert the raw data resource people produce into something of value.
:''“The big change that I've seen in the last few years is that it has become possible for companies to gain market share by emphasizing privacy.”'' - Arvind Narayanan, Computer Scientist; Associate Professor, Princeton University
:"''“How are people supposed to be incentivized to care about the economics of their data, when their data has no economic value?”'' - David Gehring, Mozilla Fellow; Distributed Media Lab, CEO
:''"Black Box" is more of a lack of understandability, because we haven't figured out how to explain things to people—it is not a technical solve, it's a very human thing, like standardization, traceability of decisions, etc.”'' - Rumman Chowdhury, Managing Director, Accenture AI
:''“This whole economy is built on a false premise–targeted advertising is a scam.”'' - Mark Surman, Executive Director, Mozilla Foundation
:''“A real market crash will force brands to pull back ad budget and they will realize that this will not change conversions and a lot of middle men will die overnight.”'' - Augustine Fou
== Towards a Positive Vision ==
