what do we know and what should we do about…? internet privacy

My new book, what do we know and what should we do about internet privacy has just been published, by Sage. It is part of a series of books covering a wide range of current topics – the first ones have been on immigration, inequality, the future of work and housing. 

This is a very different kind of book from my first two books – Internet Privacy Rights, and The Internet, Warts and All, both of which are large, relatively serious academic books, published by Cambridge University Press, and sufficiently expensive and academic as to be purchasable only by other academics – or more likely university libraries. The new book is meant for a much more general audience – it is short, written intentionally accessibly, and for sale at less than £10. It’s not a law book – the series is primarily social science, and in many ways I would call the book more sociology than anything else. I was asked to write the book by the excellent Chris Grey – whose Brexit blogs have been vital reading over the last few years – and I was delighted to be asked, because making this subject in particular more accessible has been something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. Internet privacy has been a subject for geeks and nerds for years – but as this new book tries to show, it’s something that matters more and more for everyone these days.

It may be a short book (well, it is a short book, well under 100 pages) but it covers a wide range. It starts by setting the context – a brief history of privacy, a brief history of the internet, and then showing how we got from what were optimistic, liberal and free beginnings to the current situation – all-pervading surveillance, government involvement at every level, domination by a few, huge corporations with their own interests at heart. It looks at the key developments along the way – the world-wide-web, search, social networks – and their privacy implications. It then focusses on the biggest ‘new’ issues: location data, health data, facial recognition and other biometrics, the internet of things, and political data and political manipulation. It sketches out how each of these matters significantly – but how the combination of them matters even more, and what it means in terms of our privacy, our autonomy and our future.

The final part of the book – the ‘what should we do about…’ section – is by its nature rather shorter. There is not as much that we can do as many of us would like – as the book outlines, we have reached a position from which it is very difficult to escape. We have built dependencies that are hard to find alternatives to – but not impossible. The book outlines some of the key strategies – from doing our best to extricate ourselves from the disaster that is Facebook to persuading our governments not to follow the current ultimately destructive paths that it seems determined to pursue. Two policies get particular attention: Real Names, which though superficially attractive are ultimately destructive and authoritarian, fail to deal with the issues they claim to and put vulnerable people in more danger, and the current and fundamentally misguided attempts to undermine the effectiveness of encryption.

Can we change? I have to admit this is not a very optimistic book, despite the cheery pink colour of its cover, but it is not completely negative. I hope that the starting point is raising awareness, which is what this book is intended to do.

The book can be purchased directly from Sage here, or via Amazon here, though if you buy it through Amazon, after you’ve read the book you might feel you should have bought it another way!

 

Paul Bernal

February 2020

The ethical case for ad-blocking

The ad-blocking wars have been hotting up over the last few months – triggered in part by Apple’s integration of ad-blocking into the new version of iOS, the operating system for iPhones and iPads. Some of the commentary, particularly from those associated with the advertising industry, has been more than a touch hyperbolic. Seasoned internet-watchers will be very familiar with ‘such-and-such will break the internet’ stories: the number of things that we’ve been told will break the internet over the years is huge. It’s as familiar as the ‘such-and-such technology/practice will kill music’ stories that have been around since the advent of recording – from home-taping to file-sharing, music has died almost as often as Sean Bean in the movies. And yet music still lives. And thrives. As does the internet, despite all the things that should have killed it.

The latest idea is that ad-blockers will break the internet. A particular piece in The Verge has been very widely read and shared – which puts forward the entirely believable suggestion that Apple has included ad-blocking in iOS as part of its global war with Google and Facebook. The overall premise is highly convincing – and of course Apple will do whatever it can to ‘win’ against Google and Facebook, and of course this is an opportunity to make some ground. Both Google and Facebook do make their money (or most of it) from advertising, so restricting, controlling or blocking advertising could potentially reduce that income. And Apple is a business, and will be looking for opportunities that give it a commercial advantage over its rivals. So, however, are Google and Facebook – despite their efforts to portray themselves as providers of free and wonderful services to all, guardians and supporters of freedom of expression and so fundamental to the infrastructure of the internet that we love that any challenges to them (and their business models) are challenges to the internet itself.

Publishers and the advertising industry – and in particular bodies that ‘represent’ the advertising industry – are equally aggressive, suggesting that ad-blocking is ‘unethical’, ‘hypocritical’ or worse. They have pursued ad-block software providers in the courts in Europe – consistently losing, most recently in Germany last week, where the makers of AdblockPlus made their fourth successful defence against a legal challenge. The media onslaught has been extensive, and supported by many commentators. And yet Adblock software seems to be increasingly popular and successful, both on computers and on mobile.

Why is this? Is it because those who use ad-blocking software are unethical? Because they come from the ‘something for nothing’ culture? Because they don’t understand the economics of the internet, and so are blindly going down a route that can lead only to disaster? I don’t think so. The reverse: I think that users of ad-blocking software are taking a positive route both ethically and economically. If anything, it is by extending the use of adblocking software that the future of the internet is being secured, not the reverse. The more people that use adblockers, the better the future for the internet.

Why do I think this? Well, first of all, I look at some of the positives and negatives of the use of adblockers.

In favour of ad-blocking:

1. Makes your screen clearer and makes it easier to find and read the content (particularly important on mobile)
2. Makes the experience cleaner, clearer and less annoying
3. Speeds up your connection – stops those processor-hungry video ads in particular
4. Saves you money if you pay for data (which many people do)
5. Reduces your chances of picking up malware
6. Protects (to some degree) your privacy by stopping trackers and profilers
7. Protects (to some degree) your privacy by stopping others (e.g. government agencies) from piggybacking on the trackers and profilers
8. It’s your freedom of choice to put whatever software you like on your own equipment.

Against ad-blocking

1. Disrupts the current advertising model that supports much of the free content on the internet
2. Stops you receiving relevant and attractive ads tailored to your profile and behaviour

This second anti-ad-blocking point is a stretch to say the least, though it is one that the advertising industry likes to push. I am far from convinced. That then leaves only the first point, that using adblockers disrupts the advertising model. And it does, no question about it. It has the potential to disrupt it hugely, which is why the advertising industry and the publishers that are supported by it are in such turmoil.

The points in favour of ad-blocking, however, include some very strong ones. Fundamentally, and this is the point that the advertising industry seems very reluctant to admit, the current model is broken. Very badly broken, from the point of view of the user – and particularly the mobile user. The first four points are critical: speed of connection for mobile is a fundamental issue, most people pay for data, and the screens of even the biggest phones (I have an iPhone 6 plus) are small enough that advertisements often make pages all but impossible to read. One of my favourite newspapers, The Independent, was completely unreadable on my phone until I installed an ad-blocker.

The remaining points are more ‘niche’ – I am a privacy advocate, so the privacy points really matter to me, but I realise that not all people care as much as I do, even if I believe they should – but the first four are strong enough that the points against ad-blocking would need to be very compelling, and ultimately, to me at least, they are not. Indeed, precisely the opposite.

The current situation is unsustainable

Let me return to the main point against ad-blockers. They disrupt the current advertising model that underpins much of the ‘free’ internet. Two key words: disrupt and current. Privacy-invasive, processor-intensive, screen-filling advertising is very much the current system, not something that has always existed nor something that need always exist. To assume that a current model is a ‘required’ model, is a necessary model and will (and must) last forever is ridiculous in the face of the most cursory examination of history. Things change all the time – and sometimes that change is necessary. For many people (as the uptake of adblockers reveals) the change in the current advertising model is necessary right now.

The need for disruption

The question then is how the situation can change – and part of that is the need for disruption. Without disruption, nothing will change. That is where adblockers come in, and why the use of them is a positive ethical step. If we want change, we have to act in order to make that change happen. Without adblockers, would the advertising industry be willing to change their model? The evidence points strongly against that. Advertisements have become more intrusive, more processor-hungry, more screen-filling over recent months and years, not less so. The past record of the advertising industry is not one to be celebrated. Here are just a few examples:

• They have pretty consistently fought against attempts to make advertising less intrusive, and supported the worst excesses of advertisers. Phorm, the creepiest and most privacy invasive of all, which thought it was OK to monitor peoples entire internet activity without consent, and even engaged in extensive secret trials without telling anyone, was supported directly by the industry bodies right until the end, when its model was ditched in the face of legal threats, EU action and being abandoned by its business partners.
• The Do Not Track initiative – through which advertisers were intended to abide by user choices set out in their browsers – was so heavily undermined by the advertisers that it fell apart. Firstly they turned ‘do not track’ into ‘do not target’ – still tracking those who opted out, gathering data and profiling them, but not serving them with targeted ads. Then they refused to accept the idea that ‘not being tracked’ could be set as the default, saying that they would ignore that choice.
• Google and others appear to have effectively side-stepped the do not track settings in the Safari browser, still tracking users though they had actively chosen not to be tracked: this is the backing to the Google vs Vidal-Hall case.

This is just a part of it – and does not even touch on the many other ethical issues connected to advertising. For advertisers to lecture others on ethics is more than a little hard to swallow.

How, then, can the advertising industry be persuaded to change its ways? The use of disruptive technology is one key tool. If the current dysfunctional situation is to be changed, and that would seem to many to be a good thing, then more use of that disruptive technology would seem to the necessary. Just as civil disobedience is sometimes critical to get social change, the same is true on the internet. It might be pushing it too far to say that we have a duty to use ad-blockers, but I don’t think it’s that much of a push.

There are some signs that some advertisers are taking the hint. The Electronic Frontier Foundation reported last week that ‘Adblockers and Innovative Ad Companies are Working Together to Build a More Privacy-Friendly Web’ – and I hope that this is a sign of better things to come. Would the ad companies have taken this kind of step without the uptake of adblockers? I think it highly unlikely.

What is clear to me, however, is that we need a new economic model to replace the current broken one. I do not know what that model will be, but I am confident that it will emerge. The internet will not ‘break’, any more than the music industry will collapse. Our disruption is part of how that new model will be created and developed. We should not be cowed by the advertising industry, particularly on ethical grounds.