Internet privacy concerns and protection methods

Filter Bubble

A Review of What the Internet Is Hiding From You

This paper reviews the book, The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You, by Eli Pariser. The purpose of this paper is to analyze this book in an attempt to determine where the future of the internet is headed. The Filter Bubble begins with an overview of how Google began customizing its search results for intent users in 2009 and the results of that customization. The author hypothesizes that the future of the net is personalization. This is the undertone of the entire work. Follow up pieces by the Economist, including several supporting articles, suggest that personalization is indeed the future of the internet. These articles, while not cited by page number as they are online, do show that personalization is occurring. This however, is leading to decreased privacy over the web. This is a primary point Pariser makes throughout his book, as do many other authors (Bohm, 1994; Joy, 2000; Kelly, 2008; Minsky, 1988).

The desire to move into the future in fact, has led to more and more personalization of the internet, and customization of search results (Joy, 2000; Minsky, 1988). The goal of personalization was initially to lead to a more personalized and user-friendly experience. Google planned on improving revenue dollars by targeting advertising based on user clicks from Google advertising dollars. Google tracked and kept personal data that was acquired primarily from user logins and data received from logins. The people using Google did not realize however that if they typed in information, they would receive personalized search results, not the same search results someone else typing in the same information would receive. Ultimately, over the next few years this trend should continue, at least, that is the goal that Google and other major search engines have.

To accomplish this, Google has had to collect and store vast quantities of user's personal information. Many feel that today's Internet Giants, Google, Facebook, Apple, and others are not secretly tracking personal information so they can shape our identities, so they can form what exactly we see when we go to the Net. This eventually will shape what we like on the Net. This may result in a homogenous collection of "bubbles" of people that search for information on the web. Many people are afraid this will eventually reshape what the face of web users will become, a homogenous population of people that is dumbed down.

Introduction

The internet has become increasingly popular in recent years, the new go to source for information, breaking news, and as a tool for socially connecting to ones friends, relatives, and business associates. In fact, more people use the internet than any other media outlet as their primary source of content whether for movies, information, news, books, reviews, or simply to pass the time. In recent years Google and other major search engines have customized these search results that clients have used as society has entered what Pariser refers to as a new era of personalization. The future of the internet will be increasing personalization. Pariser points out however, that this may result in security breaches, and increasing lack of privacy to anyone that uses this net. This sentiment is echoed by various authors (Bohm, 1994; Joy, 2000; Kelly, 2008; Minsky, 1988).

This has changed with way users interact with the web, as the web has become increasingly tailored to meet user's needs. Pariser expresses concerns over the internet's new shape, which he refers to as the "filter bubble," the product of filtering out information over time to deliver to clients what they "want" rather than what they should or necessarily need to see from day-to-day.

Whether people know it, or want it or not, programmers and engineers are now actively at work behind the scenes, shaping the future of society. Programmers working behind the scene, even hackers, are interested in gathering personalized information. The more social media users link email accounts, social media accounts and other information, the more likely they are to become known to others throughout the world. The programmers behind the scenes are working toward a future that is homogenous, depersonalized and customized. They are busy helping to solve what they believe to be the big problems of our age. For some, these are nothing more than how Google and other major search engines can keep people on the web for longer periods of time so they can make more money. For others it is how they can build an engaged and more informed citizenry. Ideally this would be the goal for everyone; how can society become more engaged, informed and linked with one another. How can we engaged society in a more peaceful manner so as to promote the common good of one another? Unfortunately this is not always the goal of everyone. Some people still see the net as a form of entertainment, or as a tool to promote gossip. Programmers don't always see this end goal, while others take advantage of it to promote their own self-interests, and sell goods to the ignorant that can't afford them anyway. What Pariser points out is that programmers and engineers who will do more good are needed, rather than those that will promote more evil (p. 188).

Free Exchange of Information

Pariser starts off with many premises, including the idea that the internet was founded on the premise that people should be able to freely exchange ideas and information. One of the reasons the internet was so well liked initially was because people could go online and be whoever they wanted. They could freely exchange information. When it was first started, the internet is nothing more than a free exchange of information. So commonly known was this that the government used it as much as the public. It still does, but it uses it for many different reasons. Today, the internet is more a data gathering tool than it is simply a machine for freely sharing information. There are many countries that inhibit the free sharing of information because they impose tight controls on the sharing of information, and for good reason. Countries like China and other tight-lipped nation states have already imposed a filter bubble of sorts so that people are not able to freely share and exchange information. While governments freely collect information about people, they do this so they can monitor the activity of citizens and would-be revels. To hear of that here in the states still causes outrage among some people, but it shouldn't at least not in the near future.

In an article published by the Economist in 2010, the internet is referred as a "trade pact" more so than an invention, as "a network of networks" one that has grown astonishingly fast over the past 15 years because more and more networks connected to it as it continued to grow. In fact, the internet was quoted as being largely responsible for dissolving many of the traditional boundaries that existed between "academic, corporate, and consumer networks, like those that used to exist between large corporate moguls CompuServe and AOL (Economist, 2010 Feb). The comparison was made between free-trade agreement between countries, and the gains made from the internet when exchanges of data allowed innovation to "flourish." The U.S. used to pride itself over this free exchange of information. Now however, people are beginning to see just how this free exchange of information how eroded so many traditional revenues and streams of income and information, such as schools, books, publishing companies and even the music industry. The free exchange of information has come at a price. The internet is now so large that government entities and corporations want to use it in new ways, because what is old is done. Now commercial interests and political interests are new ways the web can be used to facilitate new campaigns and win new gains.

Complementing what Pariser says in his work, national walls are being built using the internet; for example, China has a firewall that imposes "tight controls on internet links with the rest of the world" so that traffic is highly regulated and monitored, and some services are simply not available (Economist, Feb 2010). In other countries similar problems present, as government's limit what people using the internet can see in their countries. This is akin to censoring in the extreme. This is somewhat like the personalization Pariser talks about in the first part of his book, but it is taken to an extreme level, it goes further than simply personalizing the internet, it simply limits the internet, making personalization extreme to the point where people have no choice in changing their links up at all. Companies are also controlling what people see by closing out what people can have, by creating for example, internal e-mail systems. This is what Facebook did when they created their own e-mail system, and when certain companies create proprietary web-based services and software applications that can be only used with their own programs and mobile devices.

Neutrality Not Swiss

What is happening essentially, or the moral of the story one might say, is that what was once an open and free system that promoted a greater exchange of information, is something that is now becoming a walled system. Pariser points out that the Internet actually hides information. Hiding, secrecy and censoring is more like socialism than it is a democratic system. As the Economist points out in many of its pieces, and as in one article quoted, "The Web is Dead" as Wired magazine quoted recently' although this goes a bit further than many expect the case will go. Although, this may not be such a bad thing, as some customers favor using some products over others. Apple for example, delights in working with its loyal customers, who may prefer trading a universal system for working with their preferred provider. Clientele are probably more likely to protest having to deal with restrictions presented by the government (Economist, 2010 Feb). The Economist also pointed out that Australia is planning to build a firewall that is similar to the one the Chinese put in place, but it is to help block child pornography and instructions for making bombs. However, there are many that oppose this, thinking it is a bad idea and easy to avoid. There are better ways to handle such problems, believe consumers. And, problems such as these have been dealt with more effectively using other methods over time.

Hasn't censorship been something that mankind has had to deal with for centuries? Has blocking a particular service or section of something ever really been an effective way to manage it? What happens when something that is popular grows to the point when authorities consider it unmanageable? Is knowledge and information ever something that the government can really control anyway?

Relevance

In the first section, Pariser discusses what the internet knows about you. The internet essentially focuses on personalization. This is particularly true of Google, the mega site that in recent years has focused on creating personalized "experiences" for its clients. When visitors search on Google, no longer does the site pull up "random" selections. Rather, each visitor that comes to Google will pull up "personalized" search results, even if two people type in the same search terms. This is because Google, like many other sites including Facebook, is concerned with creating algorithms that will please its visitors and customers. But the bottom line isn't about customers either, it is about making money. This is what all things in society boil down to, making money. Many believe this is why the quality of so many things in society today has deteriorated. Good quality products have declined because it is cheaper to make products faster and with cheaper plastic. Quality writing is impossible to find so reality television has gone mainstream. Personalizing the internet leads to more satisfied customers that can live in personalized bubbles and live independently of anyone else. Thus, the filter bubble exists.

In Part two of his work, Pariser introduces the idea of the "user" as "content." Content did not have to be premium now to attract users; rather advertisers focused on the users themselves, finding other ways to attract users by focusing on what they paid attention to rather than trying to attract them with material. The NY Times and The Washington Post used to be the way to find users. Not so anymore. Now the cost of distributing media is next to zero. Now anyone can produce news, information on the net. Anyone with a laptop. A report in The Economist entitled "The wiki way" notes that content users are increasingly popular. In 2007 following a disputed election in Kenya, a local lawyer and blogger put up a website that allowed anyone with a mobile phone or internet connection to put up reports of outbreaks of violence including killings and beatings. The idea was a success, allowing the site to grow where people throughout the world starting posting incidents on a map throughout various parts of the world It allowed people to post other incidents including the impact of natural disasters such as earthquakes. In this manner people and local media can see what people are actually interested in reporting; the site embodied user-generated content. And, traditional media was not interested in reporting or even investigating, and it would not have mattered, because reportedly they did not have the money to. But thanks to the internet, such tracking and user-directed reporting is possible. Professional editing and reporting is expensive, but web-generated content is not. Human curators determining what news should be consumed has become a more common and plausible answer to the human condition (Pariser, p. 51).

In, "The Adderall Society" Pariser describes the phenomenon is a society that is addicted to staying up and "dong," tackling something or tackling complex structures by "tacking the inside of the box to the wall, then placing the candle in the box" (p. 98). This idea is that people will pop pills now to stay up hours to be on the web connected to each other. Experts have studied years to understand what the common man has understood much better for ages. That is that our heads are connected in networks and hierarchies much like in the Net. And that experts predictions are much less valuable in many respects than the commoner's opinions and beliefs, which are most easily spread through networks and maps on the Web. The Web is a network of maps that lead consumers from one place to another. What is locked up on the head is brilliantly explained by various people in many new and interested ways through various codes and networks. There is more than one way to skin a cat, and that is most easily explained when many different people are unlocking the many different doors on the Web with many different keys. Some unlock doors in the same mansion, and others simply unlock many mansions in the same city. What happens however, is balance, but it still remains in the bubble. What happens is less and less variety for the people with the key, because essentially you get less and less creativity. When people start sharing information on the Web, they have a tendency to overlook certain things. Some people are easily distracted, and other people are not. This is a point that Pariser makes clear. What the Internet can have a tendency of doing is making certain information come to the top of the pile, and make other information tend to disappear. By taking into account what people want to hear, and downplaying what certain individuals do not want to hear, relevant information to society that people "should" hear may never get out into the open. Some information that is "good" for people may never get into the open, or become popular information. People may become heterogeneous addicts to reality type television. This isn't necessarily a good thing. People may become lost in a world of bubbles. The more educated may tend to consume news that is helpful, but they may also become what Pariser refers to as "mis-educated" (p. 89) with leanings that are too far to the left or right. Balance is critical to anyone's livelihood. If you take someone that is interested in the lives of serial killers, and you allow them to read about this topic 24 hours a day, then undoubtedly over time one will breed a bit of paranoia in the person. Balance is essential to the health and wellness of anyone. If everything in the world is filtered, it does not provide opportunities for creative learning. Different types of stimulus are essential for creative learning.

Diversity according to Pariser, is what makes learning creative, because it provides the stimulus to learn things that are not similar to ourselves. Traditionally, diversity has always been something that was promoted, whether in schools, or in corporate facilities, or in nations as a whole. This at least, was what was promoted on the surface. Underneath the surface however, perhaps diversity was not as loved and well liked as people suggested. From a scientific standpoint however, diversity has always been beneficial. It stimulates the cognitive and perceptual parts of the brain to discover new things and create new electronic pathways. Without new stimulus, the brain has no motivation to create open-mindedness that will stimulate focus for creativity. The comparison to Adderall is made because of this lack of creativity. Adderall improves focus by encouraging the brain to focus, but only on one thing. It promotes a narrow focus. Thus, people are able to focus on things for extended periods of time, but only one thing. This works for purposes of the filter bubble, because if all distractions are filtered out, then internet users need to focus on only one topic area. This allows them to go for hours and hours with the only requirement being they focus on one thing. Thus, users can get into a "trancelike, zoned out" state to the exclusion of everything else (Pariser, p 93). This however will eventually destroy the likelihood of innovation, and random chance, because innovation requires as Pariser points out, serendipity, or random chance, which is less likely with a one-focus vision. Visionaries must rely on blind variation, mutations, and accidents, which are less likely with so many filters in place. Generally it is outside of the box type of thinking that generates entrepreneurial type gains. Artists, writers and other creative type thinkers are used to this thinking and method of life.

Pariser's work also notes that by filtering information, you shape who you can and cannot become. Filtering has a play in who we are and who we are not. Because by filtering information, we cannot help but shape who we are and who we are not. In "The You Loop" Pariser notes that well-educated students in Ivy League colleges may see advertisements for jobs that others students may or may not ever be made aware of. There is a certain status quo. You may never be made aware of the choices that are made known to you. You made never be made aware of who you may become and who it is not possible for you to become based on the choices that are made for you or presented to you. There is so much discrimination in the world. Improper filterization may benefit or harm you depending on how you look at it. Personalization can literally shape someone's identity. Many people spend a majority of their time consuming broadcast media rather than personalized content streams (p. 113). Personalization according to Pariser, "requires a theory of what makes a person, and what bits of data are most important to determine who someone is" (p. 113). So far Google has relied on what a persona clicks on to decide what someone likes and dislikes. There are different people however, that we share with others and we make private. Thus the Facebook person may be different from the Google person, and someone that is using a private computer may have different habits than someone that uses a personal computer. Someone that works on their computer may have different things to say than someone who uses their computer for personal use only. Facebook tries to convince the world that we have one identity. Is this the truth? Founder of Facebook tried to convince the world that everyone had one identity. When the web was first introduced, many people liked the idea of hiding behind so many different identities.

There was a mystique in being able to have multiple different identities. Is this still possible today? Some argue they are a different person when they are around family members than when they are with their friends and colleagues or work companions. Perhaps someone is different with a lover than with a friend. How does one really define identity? Is this all scam to be able to better monitor and watch the public and to reduce the privacy of people in general? Pariser notes that the one-identity fix is a problem causing anxiety that leads to work problems coming home into the personal privacy of the home at night. It causes personalization to be problematic, leaving huge gaps in the "what should" areas of the computer. There are areas where things "should" fit but do not, causing the web to simply put things into places where they do not fit. There is a danger in turning too much information over to information gathering sites like Facebook that seek to collect too much information. Companies are looking at living, breathing humans. These are companies and people that look at dollar bill signs; they do not have a living, breathing, human heart. Pariser talks about a smart phone of the future that would do searches for you as you walked along the street; for example, instead of having a Google search engine, your smart phone would ask you, "Do you know, do you know?" Apparently this seems to executives to be helpful. It seems as though this would help shape personalization. Not many executives find this to be annoying, they see it as mapping. This is seen as a steady stream of news about either defense, useful information, or products pricing to help people with information, news or reports.

The problem with personalization is in part a coding problem. It creates what Pariser calls "compulsive media" so that people clicks things more. The technology "can't distinguish compulsion from general interest" and as long as the person searching is generating page views 'that can be sold to advertisers, it might not care" (p. 127). What that means is that you might be searching for a one off thing, but the personalization software doesn't know that, so for the next year, that one search may result in information coming your way about that topic over and over again, much like a compulsion. This could be a bad thing if you were just curious about something and that one thing is not something you care or need to have thrown at your face again and again, especially if it is something harmful that could lead to an addiction or compulsion. The system can become a trap, leading to something that is experiential or drowning. Loops can be beginning or not. If for example, the net perceives that you are not intelligent, then it may continue to send you not intelligent articles. This would not be helpful toward your educational endeavors. If however, the personalization process picked up on the fact that you were especially bright, this could help.

Personalization goes further. Coders have become like gods. They can create worlds apart from the real world, and are infused with god-like power. People who felt they had no control feel like they have all control when they are able to create personalized worlds in which they have full power over all the game players. They do in fact. In a world where geeks are made to feel like gods, pariser points out that anyone with half a brain would want to get "in" on the net (p 207). Getting what you want out of the net is easier in a shifting world. What is scary however, is that the internet is taking coding to the next level. To get people to do what "it" wants, and what advertisers want, coders are also using coding to build "virtual" people. For example, advertisements now come in the form of people. The next person that friends someone on Facebook may actually be a virtual person and not an actual person, so the virtual friend can sell you things. Meaning, a person on the net may not be a person after all. The net is as much a virtual battlefield as it is anything else (Joy, 2000). Google has rewritten and reshaped the nature of how people do business (Battelle, 2005) as much as has individual coders.