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Friend,
Last month in New York City, S.T.O.P. convened “Privacy For Profit: The New Surveillance Economy,” a conversation joined by 50 leading activists, journalists, and researchers to discuss how consumer privacy is traded for profit through surveillance and AI.
Sponsored by DuckDuckGo and co-hosted by the Information Law Institute, the panel was moderated by award-winning investigative journalist and author, Julia Angwin, and featured Samuel A.A. Levine, NYC Commissioner for Consumer and Worker Protection; Darío Maestro, S.T.O.P. Special Counsel; and Olivier Sylvain, Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law and former special advisor to the FTC Chair. Panelists dove into a range of topics, including the history of digital surveillance since the Reagan era, the rise of surveillance pricing, and what makes them hopeful for the future of privacy.
Kamyl Bazbaz, DuckDuckGo Chief Communications and Public Affairs Officer, perfectly summed up what we want to see from every U.S. corporation:
“The best way we can protect your privacy is by not collecting your data at all, and if more companies did that, and if that was the status quo, I think the surveillance economy would be in a different place. What if we just didn’t do all the creepy stuff? That’s an option for every company, and I think that’s an option we should all take very seriously—that it doesn’t need to be this way.”
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