After Cambridge Analytica, Privacy Experts Get to Say ‘I Told You So’; April 12, 2018

Nellie Bowles, The New York Times; After Cambridge Analytica, Privacy Experts Get to Say ‘I Told You So’

"In their own lives, privacy experts are now fielding a spike in calls from their relatives asking them for advice about protecting their personal data. Engineers are discussing new privacy projects with them. Even teenagers are paying attention to what they have to say.

For many of the developers, this is the right time to push ahead with testing more privacy solutions, including more advanced advertising blockers, peer-to-peer browsers that decentralize the internet, new encryption techniques, and data unions that let users pool their data and sell it themselves. Others want to treat tech giants more as information fiduciaries, which have a legal responsibility to protect user data.

And for the first time, many privacy experts think internet users will be more willing to put up with a little more inconvenience in return for a lot more privacy.

“This is the first blink of awakening of the world to a danger that’s been present for a long time, which is that we are exposed,” Mr. Searls said. “Cambridge Analytica is old, old news to privacy folks. They’re just the tip of the crapberg.”"

Privacy experts alarmed as Amazon moves into the health care industry; Washington Post, January 30, 2018

Abha Bhattarai, Washington Post; Privacy experts alarmed as Amazon moves into the health care industry

"Amazon.com on Tuesday announced a joint partnership with Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan to create an independent health-care company for their employees, putting an end to months of speculation that the technology giant was eyeing a foray into the medical industry. It’s yet another endeavor for the company, which last year spent $13.7 billion to enter the grocery business with its acquisition of Whole Foods Market. (Jeffrey P. Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon, also owns The Washington Post.)

[Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan Chase join forces to tackle employees’ health-care costs]

But as the online retailer expands into new industries — cloud computing, drones, tech gadgets, moviemaking and now health care — some privacy experts say the company’s increasingly dominant role in our lives raises concerns about how personal data is collected and used. What happens, for example, when a company that has access to our weekly shopping lists, eating habits and in-home Alexa-based assistants also becomes involved in our medical care?"