In a previous chapter of my professional journey, I served as a federal affairs manager at Americans for Tax Reform, a center-right organization. Throughout my tenure, I focused on technology policy and passionately advocated for minimal government intervention by opposing net neutrality while supporting online privacy and personal data protection.
While it may not have been the most exhilarating job, I firmly believe that the work I did, and the issues I championed, remain important to this day. Even though I have moved on from that arena, I still closely monitor these matters because in today’s digital world, the fight for freedom and privacy is a continuous battle, and the fundamental concepts are just as crucial now as they were in 2007.
Those seemingly “free” apps, websites, and services that everyone adores are far from actually free. In the online realm, if you are not the paying customer, you become the product. These apps serve as data “fishing nets,” capturing and refining your data into valuable assets for the companies that collect it.
They possess a profound understanding of your desires, often even before you do, tailoring ads based on complex algorithms and artificial intelligence to present you with products and services you didn’t even realize you needed or wanted. They excel at this practice, which may explain why the number of billionaires in the United States soared from 359 in 2009 to 614 in 2020 – and not because these billionaires prioritize public privacy.
Personally, I try to disrupt the system in small ways by manipulating the information I provide. For instance, my birth year on Facebook is listed as 1911. While I may not be a teenager, I certainly haven’t reached the age of 112… at least not yet. I often humorously indicate my location as Earth and keep my employment and education history to myself. Although I am the product, I don’t want to give them a plethora of personal details to exploit. It may be a moral victory, albeit a rather insignificant one, but I’ll take it – if only to deceive myself into thinking I’ve outsmarted the system.
Being the product necessitates companies relentlessly seeking more information from you, leading to an unending dance between Big Tech entities and the public. The internet played a pioneering role in generating extensive, excessively complex, and ever-changing user agreements that are often obfuscated by legalese. When was the last time you read one of these user agreements? If you’re anything like me, the answer is probably never.
Nevertheless, an intriguing story out of Illinois has recently captivated my attention, shedding light on the consequences of disregarding these user agreements.
It is an undeniable universal truth that every user agreement favors the company that drafted it. Neglecting to read it will not provide any assistance should a dispute arise. However, in Illinois, an individual who had actually read Samsung’s user agreement discovered a means to employ it against the company.
Users from Illinois accused Samsung of collecting and misusing their biometric data, such as fingerprints and facial recognition, without proper disclosure. The tech giant’s user agreement, like most others, mandated arbitration instead of a lawsuit. Companies dread being subjected to lawsuits, particularly class-action suits that can rapidly emerge from allegations of user agreement violations.
Class-action suits have their drawbacks. I, like many others, have involuntarily found myself caught up in these suits. Often, I wasn’t even aware that any wrongdoing had occurred, and it’s frustrating to realize that the proposed resolution involves enriching lawyers while I am merely compensated with insignificant coupons for future purchases from the presumed wrongdoer. Lawyers never accept coupons as payment.
However, in this particular case, users discovered a creative way to make Samsung pay: mass arbitration. It isn’t mass arbitration in the traditional sense of a large class of people collectively demanding a single arbitration. Instead, they filed tens of thousands of individual arbitration cases.
While companies generally prefer arbitration over lawsuits, arbitration proceedings do come at a cost. The prospect of having to cover millions of dollars in arbitration fees poses a significant incentive for Samsung or any other company to reevaluate its policies, don’t you think?
Naturally, Samsung is now seeking to revise the rules in their favor once again. The impact of 50,000 customers bringing arbitration claims will undoubtedly leave a lasting impression on their bottom line. As for what is ultimately best for consumers and privacy, other than major tech companies refraining from violating our privacy altogether, I cannot definitively say. However, I relish the idea of challenging the status quo, and utilizing their own convoluted, ever-evolving user agreements against them would serve as a formidable check against their abuses.
The next crucial step would be fostering honesty and transparency, but that may have to wait until tech giants face substantial consequences.
Derek Hunter is the host of the Derek Hunter Podcast and a former staffer for the late Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.).
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