Shoutout to Ayush Tanna for the topic

Throughout the concluding months of 2018, we witnessed a series of testifications on the part of large tech companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook in presence of United State senators. The primary concern, it seems, is privacy, security, and management of user data.

In April 2018, a bill was passed in the US senate pertaining to Social Media Privacy Protection and Consumer Rights. In lieu of this change and a similar change in the EU’s policy regarding privacy a lot of companies updated their privacy policy (most of us got the notifications) to accomodate the new provisions.

In particular, there were 4 hearings with tech giants to discuss, and to a great extent accuse them, of content sharing and using personal information for advertisements and marketing. With the increased popularity of Big Data implementations to facilitate advertisements there seems to be a growing concern about the way we interact on the internet. Perhaps everyone just saw Fast & Furious 7 and got intimidated by the God’s Eye.

But jokes apart, it becomes crucial to note, that if companies centered around mass consumerism cannot gain the trust of their users, it leads to a complex bit of a situation. Most companies use user data in the form of cookies to better accustom ad content endemic to a particular computer or user, most people don’t know how cookies work.

The efforts of the US senate are definately commendable but they lack in the implementation of these protocols. I mean no offense to anybody, but understand that members of the senate who conducted the hearing are all past their middle ages. There were questions about whether Google can track location and why President Trump’s picture comes up every time you Google ‘idiot.’ The 21st Century is a digital book, where content is based on tags and hashtags, where popular feed comes under the trending tab based on the number of views per unit time.

The notion that tech companies like Google or Apple execute personal bias and agenda is simply unrealistic. Tech giants are respectfully shutting down the allegations made by speculatists and continuing on their projected path of innovation and progress. Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook haven’t shyed away from questions. They’ve stepped up, taken responsibility and have responded to questions and allegations with diplomacy.

To ensure the complete security and transparency in instances like these it becomes imperative to involve a younger group of people who are well acquainted with the know-how of technology and the internet.