Can Privacy Be Big Business? A Wave of Startups Thinks So. (nbcnews.com) 41
California helped create the modern Big Data industry, in which tech companies vacuum up and profit off personal information. Now a new law in the state is creating something like a solution to the loss of privacy. From a report: The California Consumer Privacy Act, which took effect Jan. 1, gives people the right to know what large companies know about them and the right to block the sale of that information to others. In effect, it created a market for privacy expertise and software. A wave of privacy-focused technology startups is offering a variety of services, from personal data scrubbing to business-focused software meant to help companies comply with the law. A brief list of the nearly 300 companies now selling privacy services includes Privacera, Privsee, Privally, Privitar and Privaon. There's DataFleets, DataGrail, DataGravity, Dataguise, DataTrue and Datastream.io. And there's HITRUST, Mighty Trust, OneTrust, trust-hub, TrustArc and The Media Trust, as well as SecureB2B, Securiti.ai, Security Scorecard and Very Good Security. Personal privacy is still under threat from data breaches, data harvesting and elsewhere, but it may also finally be living up to its promise as a profitable business.
Doesn't feel like a solution (Score:2)
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Re:Doesn't feel like a solution (Score:4, Informative)
I doubt it even does that.
The moment you buy something, you have to give up a name (which can be gleaned from your billing info), a physical address, an email addy, and often a phone number. Sure, you can go to outlandish lengths to scrub a lot of that info (pre-paid debit card + burner phone + rented mailbox + quickie gmail thingy), but unless you feel like living as if you're in a witness protection program, odds are good that your information will make it out there to at least one retailer. That retailer in turn bundles and sells your info and poof, there you are, ready to be traded like everyone else. I suspect that only the really massive corps like Amazon won't bother selling your info to anyone else... at least that I'm aware of.
Think of it like DRM and how well that doesn't work... then realize these folks are basically selling you a means to DRM your info.
So, unless you end up living like a hermit and buying everything in-person with cash, there's not much these startups can really do to help you stay private (at least that you can't do on your own to an extent). Now if you want to pollute the data and jack the signal-to-noise ratio top the point where no one knows for certain if you are really you, that's a whole different story entirely...
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I suspect that only the really massive corps like Amazon won't bother selling your info to anyone else... at least that I'm aware of.
Posting anon rather than run any risk of repercussions.
I work for a smaller company (Amazon is a competitor that's trying to get into our space heavily these days) that positions itself as the premier company in its industry (I think it is, but that's a whole different conversation). Whenever ownership gets asked, "Do we sell our customers' data?" their response is either a flat out "NO" or, "I cannot possibly imagine a situation where it would be beneficial to do so."
To elaborate on why I actually trust t
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Well if the response is "I cannot possibly imagine a situation where it would be beneficial to do so." then your company can't make any money off of it so of course they won't sell it. I fail to see your point. If the response is "We don't because we value our customers privacy" then I would be impressed.
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You're credulous of words they say, so it doesn't matter what words they say, you're completely screwed.
Stop trusting the sounds that come out of people's orifices.
You know when to trust a company isn't selling your data? When they never collected it.
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These companies aren't selling privacy. They're selling privacy expertise - because of all these privacy laws coming up
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This is called "Making money not solving problems." It's a thing now. Pharmaceutical companies blockbuster drugs all *manage chronic conditions*. If you could cure that condition, the revenue dries up.
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This is called "Making money not solving problems." It's a thing now. Pharmaceutical companies blockbuster drugs all *manage chronic conditions*. If you could cure that condition, the revenue dries up.
I don't believe that "pharmaceutical companies don't want to create cures" idea. For many reasons. ...
- A cure can be sold for a lot more money.
- A cure will destroy the competition. And thanks to the patent that goes with it, the creator will get the profits for the best 20 years.
- A cure will get more support from governments: priority for clinical trials, healthcare support,
- For non-infectious diseases like cancer, even if you have a cure, people will continue getting sick, it is not like the revenue co
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what a Racket!!! (Score:2)
Privacy is snake oil. Sure it's big business. (Score:1)
Selling things that don't exist is always big business. Just look at the church...
this post makes me itchy (Score:4, Funny)
Many of these company monikers sound like new brands of vagina cream.
Security and privacy (Score:2)
Privacera, Privsee, Privally, Privitar and Privaon. There's DataFleets, DataGrail, DataGravity, Dataguise, DataTrue and Datastream.io. And there's HITRUST, Mighty Trust, OneTrust, trust-hub, TrustArc and The Media Trust, as well as SecureB2B, Securiti.ai, Security Scorecard and Very Good Security
Any product or service sold as private or secure the safe bet is to always assume the opposite. Just looking at these names I find it impossible to believe they represent actual privacy or security.
Pollution is the key (Score:1)
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Makes sense. Send me all your logins and passwords and I will login as you to confuse the enemy.
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No idea what C88 is, but you sound cool.
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C88 in hex is 110010001000. My account name is 110010001000. Are you a Russian hacker? All my passwords are "1234".
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Your privacy is valuable (Score:2)
Would you like to buy it back?
Defense in depth or GTFO (Score:5, Insightful)
Privacy is about the weakest link. It doesn't matter if a company thumps their chest and touts "100% security" in their app when another app or library they are using is happily sending all info out. Every link in the chain must be secured in a provably good manner, not just "just trust us... this crypto library is actually a good one, not something one of us devs cobbled together in a few hours."
There are companies that sell anti-jailbreaking as privacy. No, we don't want more XBox and PS-whatevers that are pretty much hackproof by the user, but allow remote access. We need devices that do what the owner wants, and not some third party's MBA-laden marketing department who slurps a lot of personal data, then their database gets hacked and that data winds up everywhere. We don't need phones with multiple layers of OS signing and encryption... just to cover the fact that the phone maker is exfilterating data.
Then come consumers. A lot of them don't give a rat's oingo boingo about privacy, and really don't care to pay the price or suffer some inconvenience. Even though many apps can show where they have been in real time, with that data winding up in the hands of people who might just use that for bad things.
Enough of the gimmicks. It would be nice to have a neutral organization that doesn't have an axe to grind that can do something similar to UL for privacy and openness. Something that, if the organization did certify a product, it won't suck, is sold securely (as in securely against stuff the user doesn't want to happen, as opposed to anti-jailbreak measures), and is an open device.
Maybe we can see more products like Librem devices, and fewer IoT "trust us, this is secure... until it isn't and you have to chuck this model and buy our version 2.0 which we pinky promise, security stuff may get addressed."
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The key there is an "open device". That ain't going to happen. Companies and consumers have already rejected that concept. Companies make more money with walled/closed devices and consumers don't care enough to ask for open devices.
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Then come consumers. A lot of them don't give a rat's oingo boingo about privacy, and really don't care to pay the price or suffer some inconvenience. Even though many apps can show where they have been in real time, with that data winding up in the hands of people who might just use that for bad things.
Your average consumer has been indoctrinated for at least the last couple decades that 'sharing is good and right and normal' and 'only Bad People who have things to hide want privacy'. This gets reinforced by people who say things like 'I have nothing to hide therefore I have nothing to fear', and denials to the tune of 'my life is so boring who would want to spy on me?', like they're cult members or automatons. If you tell people you're not on Facebook or Twitter or other so-called 'social media', you're
You know what that's called, right? (Score:2)
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Way to go California! Is that like giving a bunch of people guns then offering services to the rest of us for security?
No, it's like taking all the guns away, (except for the criminals, whl will *never* relinquish theirs) and *then* offering security services to the newly-unarmed.
Y'know, what Bloomberg's already doing in Virginia, NH, NM... and more. He's shadow-funding all that. Even here in FL, he's doing it.
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Privacy isn't tough (Score:2)
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Privacy shouldn't be a commodity anyway, it should be a right. No one should have to pay for privacy.
A total waste of time (Score:3)
People willingly post every private detail of their life to facebook, instagram, snapchat and now tik-tok.
Cookie policies wrapped in a mile of legalize to resemble a EULA does absolutely nothing to protect your privacy. It doesn't even address the 800lb gorilla in the room that most people only care about privacy in name only, not in their personal behavior.
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How about this... (Score:2)
Organisations & individuals can collect information about you only after they have your permission in writing & you can revoke that permission at any time.
That sounds personal & private, doesn't it? It doesn't turn our personal lives into publicly traded virtual commodities without our permission, oversight, or compensation.
What all these half-measures reveal is that the US government, along with many other governments, are unwilling to reign in the big tech companies' abuse of their citizens.
There shouldn't NEED TO BE a 'privacy industry' (Score:2)
Having a 'privacy industry' is just a work-around for the real problem; it's like taking an over-the-counter 'cold remedy' when you have a virus, it doesn't kill the virus, it just treats the symptoms. The problem here is that the general publics' 'immune system' has no defense agains the 'virus' that is the pervase collection of data by data-mongering corporations like Facebook and Google, and any 'privacy industry' is just a feel-good treatment to distract everyone from the fact that their pr
Do the research (Score:2)
I think if you perform the appropriate market research, you will find plenty of evidence against the idea that people are willing to do anything for privacy; certainly not pay money for it.
Good luck to these startups, but they'll all probably burn.