Category Archives: Law

The Empire Strikes On

Posted on July 31, 2022 by Doc Searls

Twelve years ago, I posted The Data Bubble. It began, The tide turned today. Mark it: 31 July 2010. That’s when The Wall Street Journal published The Web’s Gold Mine: Your Secrets, subtitled A Journal investigation finds that one of the fastest-growing businesses on … Continue reading →

Posted in adtech, advertising, data, intention economy, Internet, Journalism, Law, media, privacy, problems, regulation, Technology, VRM | Leave a comment

So far, privacy isn’t a debate

Posted on June 22, 2020 by Doc Searls

Remember the dot com boom? Doesn’t matter if you don’t. What does matter is that it ended. All business manias do. That’s why we can expect the “platform economy” and “surveillance capitalism” to end. Sure, it’s hard to imagine that … Continue reading →

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Do you really need all this personal information, @RollingStone?

Posted on January 22, 2020 by Doc Searls

Here’s the popover that greets visitors on arrival at Rolling Stone‘s website: Our Privacy Policy has been revised as of January 1, 2020. This policy outlines how we use your information. By using our site and products, you are agreeing to the … Continue reading →

Posted in adtech, advertising, Business, history, Internet, Journalism, Law, marketing, Personal, personal data, publishing, Technology, VRM | Leave a comment

About face

Posted on October 31, 2019 by Doc Searls

We know more than we can tell. That one-liner from Michael Polanyi has been waiting half a century for a proper controversy, which it now has with facial recognition. Here’s how he explains it in The Tacit Dimension: This fact seems obvious enough; but … Continue reading →

Posted in Identity, language, Law, Life, privacy, problems, Research, Science, security | Leave a comment

On renting cars

Posted on February 9, 2019 by Doc Searls

I came up with that law in the last millennium and it applied until Chevy discontinued the Cavalier in 2005. Now it should say, “You’re going to get whatever they’ve got.” The difference is that every car rental agency in … Continue reading →

Posted in adtech, advertising, Blogging, Business, Cluetrain, Geography, history, infrastructure, Law, Life, marketing, publishing, Technology, VRM | Leave a comment

Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica problems are nothing compared to what’s coming for all of online publishing

Posted on March 23, 2018 by Doc Searls

Let’s start with Facebook’s Surveillance Machine, by Zeynep Tufekci in last Monday’s New York Times. Among other things (all correct), Zeynep explains that “Facebook makes money, in other words, by profiling us and then selling our attention to advertisers, political … Continue reading →

Posted in adtech, advertising, Berkman, Business, Customertech, Ideas, infrastructure, Internet, Journalism, Law, Links, marketing, News, Personal, privacy, problems, publishing, Research, Technology, VRM | 72 Comments

A Qualified Fail

Posted on February 20, 2018 by Doc Searls

Power of the People is a great grabber of a headline, at least for me. But it’s a pitch for a report that requires filling out the form here on the right: You see a lot of these: invitations to … Continue reading →

Posted in adtech, advertising, Business, Cluetrain, Customertech, Identity, Law, marketing, problems, Technology | 3 Comments

Revolutions take time

Posted on October 29, 2017 by Doc Searls

The original version of this ran as a comment under Francine Hardaway‘s Medium post titled Have we progressed at all in the last fifty years? My short answer is “Yes, but not much, and not evenly.” This is my longer answer. … Continue reading →

Posted in Geology, Law, Life, Personal, Politics, problems, Technology, war | Tagged anthropocene | 3 Comments

How the personal data extraction industry ends

Posted on August 26, 2017 by Doc Searls

Who Owns the Internet? — What Big Tech’s Monopoly Powers Mean for our Culture is Elizabeth Kolbert‘s review in The New Yorker of several books, one of which I’ve read: Jonathan Taplin’s Move Fast and Break Things—How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered … Continue reading →

Posted in adtech, advertising, Business, data, Ideas, infrastructure, Internet, Law, marketing, News, Technology, VRM | 6 Comments