Zuckerberg believes all personal data that can be captured on the Internet is fair game and open for exploitation. The genesis of Facebook was founded upon this unemotional puissance that all personal data is of interest economically to someone else. The Facebook business model is based upon advertising revenue. All content and service is free.
Cook adheres to the axiom that all personal data belongs to the individual and should not be used commercially without their permission. He defends a person’s right to privacy. The Apple business model is based upon product sales for revenue. The iPhone and iPad are manufactured goods sold for profit.
Apple has introduced software and apps that allow individual users of their products to protect their personal data. Zuckerberg complains that this directly interferes with Facebook’s business to use personal data for other means as they see fit. It is unfair, he claims, for Apple to restrict his business strategy by being the number one manufacturer of the device required to access his products for free.
The fact that Tim Cook is 60 and Mark Zuckerberg is 36 should not go unnoted. Cook worked his way up through the management chain at a corporation founded by another individual. He is from a generation that respects rules of order. Zuckerberg is the Founding CEO of Facebook and therefore still takes personally its operations which are reflective of him. He is from a generation that has little allegiance to past traditions of structure.
This conflict between personal rights of ownership and corporate rights for open “mining” of data is further complicated and exacerbated by the government’s demand for the compelling state interest of surveillance for national security. The government does not steal personal data for resale. But it does capture information often used as a point of data in commercial application. The consequences may be unintended. However, interaction between government surveillance and private market apps leaves a remnant footprint as a further point of data to an individual file.
One says we’re keeping you safe. One says we’re giving you what you want. One says were protecting you from what you don’t want.
Analysis of the individual’s priorities then becomes the essence of the puzzle. Most people would say they are fine with government surveillance if it keeps society secure. How often have you heard the phrase, “I have nothing to hide.”? Yet very few would agree with the extent of surveillance in China today. China is one of the few countries in the world that spends more money on surveillance of its own people than the military. Facial recognition is so prevalent that every Chinese citizen is documented. Their activities are monitored for obedience to government dictates. Each citizen is given what is called an obedience index. It’s like a credit score. You are rewarded for higher scores. It can be used to get in the front of the line to enter a store or go to a concert. Few Americans want their freedom restricted as a measure of their obedience to government.
The question on the relative merits of the protection of private ownership of personal data, a corporation’s right to provide a free service and use personal data as it sees fit, interconnected with a government’s compelling state interest to provide security, coordinated with an individual’s desire to be both free and secure, is an enigma.
Individuals seek security without being watched abusively by Big Brother (government). People further like to be directed toward videos, website, and information they like. This can only be enhanced by software which manipulates their personal data. At the same time, personal devices have become so critical to everyday life that the protection of confidential information is necessary to protect against the invasion of privacy. These conflicts of purpose have yet to be resolved by law. Apple refused an FBI request to provide the codes necessary to retrieve personal data from an iPhone in a criminal investigation. The FBI sought a court order, but before the judge rendered an opinion, the issue was resolved when a private hacker employed by the FBI successfully retrieved the data.
There are now a plethora of societal concerns emerging. Censorship, national security, freedom of speech, moral cops, movement managers, natural destiny, social media addiction, and the individual pursuit of happiness are all elements of this complicated matrix of conflicting needs.
We find ourselves as a free society, subject to strands of purpose intertwined so tightly in a Gordian knot that a solution for universal remedy seems impossible.
When the driving, essential needs of a government or business perspective are unyielding in conflict, one’s determination in personally navigating the privacy puzzle penumbra is to be steadfast to one’s vision of principle accountability. In measuring the balance of privacy versus pleasure versus security, the operative factor is whether freedom of decision is impaired or moral determination is purloined.
We must remain untied to remain free in identity and character. We must never abandon our God-given rights to secular dictates. These rights are the only purity in purpose that enshrines our individual existence.
My name is Marc Nuttle and this is what I believe.
What do you believe?