It has not been the government’s week. After private contractor Edward Snowden leaked a series of highly classified documents to The Guardian newspaper, the federal government has been besieged on all sides by accusations of spying on its citizens...

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Tech Companies and the Fight for Privacy
http://tier10lab.com/2013/06/19/tech-companies-fight-for-privacy/
By Eric Huebner
June 19, 2013
It has not been the government’s week. After private contractor Edward Snowden leaked a series of
highly classified documents to The Guardian newspaper, the federal government has been besieged on
all sides by accusations of spying on its citizens in what detractors are painting as an increasingly
Orwellian conspiracy and supporters insist is a routine counterterrorism policy.
The National Security Administration’s counterterrorism policy of mining the metadata of Verizon users
and its PRISM program, through which analysts could look at the emails of foreign nationals that
represented potential terrorist threats, hasn’t only upset pundits and citizens, but tech companies as well.
Firefox creator and online giant Mozilla has been at the forefront of this debate, loudly voicing their
disapproval over these policies. One of the founding parties of the Stop Watching Us coalition, Mozilla
has begun to contact lawmakers and has called for a congressional investigation into the NSA’s
surveillance policies.
Other members of this coalition include Reddit and the American Civil Liberties Union. The coalition is
also looking to call lawmakers, echoing the strategies of many advocacy groups during last year’s furor
over the Stop Online Piracy Act.
These surveillance programs have made waves in the marketing community as well. In recent years,
many companies have used cookies and user tracking systems in order to better target consumers with
appropriate advertising that reflects their tastes and preferences. There is a growing concern that this
vast cache of user data, which is already available to a select group of commercial parties, may soon see
widespread availability. Even more problematic is the potential that this type of database could give
federal agencies an even more intimate look into the daily lives of many consumers.

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Google and Facebook have also stepped forward and demanded that the government increase its
transparency with regard to how it is using their data. Unlike Mozilla, which appears to be protesting this
turn of events due to its business convictions, Google and Facebook are locked in a race to save their
appearances after reports emerged that they allegedly provided user data to the government agency
freely and without question. While it should be noted that the accuracy of such a statement is, as of yet,
undetermined, it’s important to note that the reputations of these companies have been called into serious
question for many users. For enormous corporations that are based upon the online exchange of data,
this could spell disaster.
It is certain that these events may give many pause when it comes time to input personal or financial data
online and many of the tech companies said to be complicit will need to follow the path of Mozilla, Google
and Facebook and actively speak out in favor of their users, lest they lose the trust of the users that they
have based their business models on.
[Sources: AdWeek, WebProNews]
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