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They know how you browse the internet, your favorite TV shows and where you shop and travel.
Data collected by internet and media companies is a powerful tool, and the big mergers planned by AT&T with Time Warner and Verizon with Yahoo offer those firms more data that can be used to target consumers with content and advertising.
Privacy advocates say the prospect of firms using all that online and offline data without safeguards could be alarming.
"Twenty-first century media is all about the ability to gather information on a single individual regardless of where they are—whether they are using mobile phone or watching TV or in a grocery store," said Jeffrey Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy, a privacy rights group.
The $85 billion deal unveiled Saturday would combine AT&T, one of the largest mobile telecom and residential internet operators, with Time Warner, the media-entertainment giant with powerful brands including the Warner Bros. studio, HBO, CNN, Cartoon Network and a major online game studio.
[...] The tie-up comes as the Federal Communications Commission is set to consider privacy rules for internet service providers like AT&T and Verizon.
The rules would require consumers to "opt in" to allow companies to combine data from different sources to deliver ads and content.
"The FCC privacy rule is critical to ensuring there are safeguards," Chester said. "Right now there are no safeguards."
[...] John Verdi of the Future of Privacy Forum, a Washington think tank, said that in both the AT&T-Time Warner and Verizon-Yahoo deals, "data is a key asset" but that the companies should respect promises made when the data was collected.
"Users are typically concerned when data is collected about them and used in unexpected ways," Verdi said.
"It's important for companies to keep the promises they made after the merged entity moves forward to maintain the trust of consumers."
Expect a raft of new tech job openings with "experience with Big Data" in the descriptions, to help the new mega companies mine it properly.
(Score: 2) by http on Wednesday October 26 2016, @07:30PM
Your "too bad" idea is horrifying. Television is dying because content producers don't control the more efficient broadcast/distribution system, and that is a good thing. Mander pointed out over 40 years ago that the mechanics of television necessarily tries to filter out certain kinds of content (censoring it with near 100% efficiency), but the business of television, particularly advertising, filters out even more. Now I'm kinda curious how a netflix sponsored show would withstand Mander's Technical Event Test, or even how it could be conducted seeing as there's no advertisements during the show.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday October 27 2016, @05:05PM
Why would the lack of advertisements prevent the technical event test?
The first article I found about it say it describes the number of artificial transitions per minute. Further, that the popularity of a show can be predicted by the number of transitions per minute.
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday October 27 2016, @05:12PM
Actually, the technical event test explains a novel format I hate: 3 threads with cliff-hangers at the end of every chapter.
(Score: 2) by http on Thursday October 27 2016, @05:26PM
Because it needs to be compared to the number of technical events in the accompanying commercials. Mander posited that the rate found in a show will rarely exceed (and infrequently approach) the rate found in its sponsoring commercials, lest the consumer remember the wrong thing.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.