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Toward data dignity: Let’s find the

right rules and tools for curbing the
power of Big Tech
Jun. 24th, 2022 Send to Kindle

If you’ve spent even a modicum of time scrolling through our biggest social
media platforms in 2022, you’ve probably seen those funky looking, seemingly
inexplicably popular images of apes as profile pictures. Non-fungible tokens,
cryptocurrencies, and other high-minded reinventions of how we carry out
transactions and function on the web have been a theme of the last year. Super
Bowl ads vaulted these concepts onto our TV screens and into our minds. Along
the same lines are the lofty ambitions of “Web3,” or the next phase of our
internet. Adherents believe Web3 will restore democracy to the internet, put
users back in charge through decentralization, and respect user privacy. In
short, a web user’s utopia.

Some write off the cartoon ape .jpgs as irrational exuberance and modern-
day tulip mania. We largely agree—it’s hard to see the intrinsic value of
anything that can be “stolen” via the few keyboard strokes it takes to copy and
paste. However, for those of us who care about ethical tech and the promise of
respecting data dignity, we cannot laugh off the signal in the noise. Web3,
whether or not it is indeed a utopia, is at least demanding that we take our
privacy back.

In our first piece in our Toward Data Dignity series, we shared how we got to
the point of enormous overreach by Big Tech; we followed up in our second
piece by discussing why you should care about data control and privacy-by-
design. It’s time that we do something about it.
For too long, Big Tech has attempted to conceal the truth that it chooses profits
over the well-being of people through deflection, dissembling, and sleight of
hand. Cynical invocations of “informed consent” are delivered based on a 24-
page user agreement that the average user doesn’t understand or have the time
to read. Technical decisions executed under the banner of privacy instead
extend monopolistic control and erode competitive markets.

We shouldn’t be surprised. The last decade of online business strategy has had
CEOs prioritizing scale and the ever-quickening growth of their monthly-
active-user base to fuel monetization based on ad impressions. The incentives
of the current system do not simply ignore privacy, the incentives are aligned
to actively undermine privacy.

So now what?

As we enter the next phase of the web, we need a new set of incentives to
encourage quality of experience for individual users, not just winner-take-all
scale. The Hippocratic Oath compels medical professionals to do no harm.
Technologists should similarly be compelled to consider the harm of the
products they build. But we can’t stop there. We must also work to promote
human flourishing, both individually and collectively.

Some technologists will gnash their teeth and tell you that we’re reaping what
we sowed decades back at the birthing of the Internet. That the funk runs too
deep; the essential architecture can’t be fixed. We reject that view, and so do all
of the talented engineers and technologists we know. Machines didn’t make the
mess we’re in; we did. We also know how to put the machines to work to fix it.

Enlightened new policies and legislation, building on blueprints like the

European Union’s GDPR and California’s CCPA, are a critical start to creating a
more expansive and thoughtful formulation for privacy. Lawmakers and
regulators need to consult systematically with technologists and policymakers
who deeply understand the issues at stake and the contours of a sustainable
working system. That was one of the motivations behind the creation of
theEthical Tech Project—to gather like-minded ethical technologists,
academics, and business leaders to engage in that intentional dialogue with
policymakers.

We are starting to see elected officials propose regulatory bodies akin to what
the Ethical Tech Project was designed to do—convene tech leaders to build
standards protecting users against abuse. A recently proposed federal
watchdogwould be a step in the right direction to usher in proactive tech
regulation and start a conversation between the government and the
individuals who have the know-how to find and define the common-sense
privacy solutions consumers need.

But new laws and regulations are not the whole solution. Rules and policies (the
domain of humans) without mechanism (the function of machines) are all hat
and no cattle—principles bereft of action.

Translating the work of legislators and regulators into mechanisms requires

creating frameworks, standards, and specifications that technologists can easily
embrace and deploy to translate policies and rules for data conduct into reality
across all the systems and devices we use to conduct our digital lives. The
Ethical Tech Project works to be that bridge between the rule-makers and
engineers because advancing data dignity through ethical technology is the
work of the collective. That’s why we are writing a comprehensive set of Privacy
Standards for companies (and other organizations that touch user data) to
ensure they are compliant with the principles of data dignity, data control, and
privacy-by-design.

We aren’t the only technologists proactively seeking solutions. There are many
developers currently building and deploying creative, common-sense solutions
to combat the malign influences that have corrupted our use of popular
platforms. Some of these mechanisms include software meant to ensure respect
for data privacy consent orchestration across data ecosystems. We applaud the
development of a “privacy stack,” off-the-shelf solutions that satisfy privacy
standards. Technical standards create the market for privacy-by-design, and
individual tech companies can satisfy demand with their point solutions.

We need to empower companies to reject the Sophie’s Choice too many of

them currently perceive: Comply with data regulations and stagnate, or ignore
them and grow. It’s feasible for businesses to respect the data rights of their
consumers while still harnessing the power of data to grow their businesses.

We no longer have to sit idly by thinking that businesses that are collecting and
monetizing our data are merely a part of the tech world’s inevitable progression
towards more intimate encroachment in our lives. We can control these
companies’ dominance and with the right rules and tools, we can create an
environment where technology is supporting human flourishing, not holding us
back.

Tom Chavez is co-founder and general partner of the startup studio super{set} and
CEO and co-founder of the software company Ketch.

Maritza Johnson, Ph.D., formerly with Facebook and Google, is the founding executive
director of the Center for Digital Civil Society at the University of San Diego and
partner at Good Research.

J‍ esper Andersen is CEO and president of Infoblox, a provider of cloud-first DDI and
DNS security services.

The authors are founding members of the Ethical Tech Project.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their
authors and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

https://fortune.com/2022/06/24/data-privacy-big-tech-ethical-standards/