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upstart writes:

The Supreme Court may overhaul how you live online:

On my Google Discover page, for example, I was seeing loads of stories about cancer and grief, which is not in line with the company's targeting policies that are supposed to prevent the system from serving content on sensitive health issues.

Imagine how dangerous it is for uncontrollable, personalized streams of upsetting content to bombard teenagers struggling with an eating disorder or tendencies toward self-harm. Or a woman who recently had a miscarriage, like the friend of one reader who wrote in after my story was published. Or, as in the Gonzalez case, young men who get recruited to join ISIS.

So while the case before the justices may seem largely theoretical, it is really fundamental to our daily lives and the role that the internet plays in society. As Farid told me, "You can say, 'Look, this isn't our problem. The internet is the internet. It reflects the world'... I reject that idea." But recommendation systems organize the internet. Could we really live without them?

Speaking of the State of the Union, Biden called out Big Tech several times, offering the clearest signal yet that there will be increased activity around tech policy—one of the few areas with potential for bipartisan agreement in the newly divided Congress.

There's a massive knowledge gap around online data privacy in the US. Most Americans don't understand the basics of online data, and what companies are doing with it, according to a new study of 2,000 Americans from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania—even though 80% of those surveyed agree that what companies know about them from their online behaviors can harm them.

Researchers asked 17 questions to gauge what people know about online data practices. If it were a test, the majority of people would have failed: 77% of respondents got fewer than 10 questions correct.

• Only about 30% of those surveyed know it is legal for an online store to charge people different prices depending on location.
• More than 8 in 10 of participants incorrectly believe that the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) stops health apps (like exercise or fertility trackers) from selling data to marketers.
• Fewer than half of Americans know that Facebook's user privacy settings allow users to control how their own personal information is shared with advertisers.

The TL;DR: Even if US regulators increased requirements for tech companies to get explicit consent from users for data sharing and collection, many Americans are ill equipped to provide that consent.

Original Submission