When did surveillance become a business model — and what would it take to rein it in?

From romantic partners who sneak peeks at their companions’ texts to the companies that harvest and sell data we don’t even know we’re giving away, internet privacy in the U.S. is ever more the exception than the rule. This three-part series asks: Does it have to be? When did surveillance become a business model — and what would it take to rein it in? Getty Images Part I: A violation of trust Listen to Part I pam emails and social media scams provide regular reminders of how online behavior can be tracked and used against us with varying degrees of harm. But some data-privacy invasions are far more up-close and personal — as Ann found out the hard way. “I don’t know that I could say that it changed the way that I view people, but it changed my behaviors certainly,” Ann recalled. Ideally, everyone would have trusted friends or family to help them through vulnerable processes like surgery and recovery. Ann, still fairly new in town, didn’t. So she placed her trust in a coworker she occasionally dated. “At the beginning of the year, I had had a major surgery, and he helped a lot with that and […]

Click here to view original web page at kjzz.org