Description: Businesses are rushing to collect personal data to fuel surging demand. Data enthusiasts claim personal information that's obtained from the commercial internet, including mobile platforms, social networks, cloud computing, and connected devices, will unlock path-breaking innovation, including advanced data security. By contrast, regulators and activists contend that corporate data practices too often disempower consumers by creating privacy harms and related problems. As the Internet of Things matures and facial recognition, predictive analytics, big data, and wearable tracking grow in power, scale, and scope, a controversial ecosystem will exacerbate the acrimony over commercial data capture and analysis. The only productive way forward is to get a grip on the key problems right now and change the conversation. That's exactly what Jules Polonetsky, Omer Tene, and Evan Selinger do. They bring together diverse views from leading academics, business leaders, and policymakers to discuss the opportunities and challenges of the new data economy.
Brief description: Evan Selinger is Professor of Philosophy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he is also the Head of Research Communications, Community, and Ethics at the Center for Media, Arts, Games, Interaction, and Creativity. Evan is also a Senior Fellow at the Future of Privacy Forum. His most recent book, co-written with Brett Frischmann, is Re-Engineering Humanity (Cambridge, forthcoming). Selinger's primary research is on the ethical and privacy dimensions of emerging technology. A strong advocate of public philosophy, he regularly writes for magazines, newspapers, and blogs, including The Guardian, The Atlantic, Slate, and Wired.
Review Quotes: 'Advances in digital technology, mobile platforms, social networks, and cloud computing are producing massive amounts of data that promise to unlock a generation of innovation, but at what cost to privacy? Jules Polonetsky, Omer Tene, and Evan Selinger bring together a diverse set of important voices from leading academics, business leaders, and policymakers to discuss the opportunities and challenges of this new data economy.' Brad Smith, President and Chief Legal Officer, Microsoft