The after party: Cynical resignation in Adtech's pivot to privacy
| Autor: | Lee McGuigan, Sarah Myers West, Ido Sivan-Sevilla, Patrick Parham |
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| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2023 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Big Data & Society, Vol 10 (2023) |
| Druh dokumentu: | article |
| ISSN: | 2053-9517 20539517 |
| DOI: | 10.1177/20539517231203665 |
| Popis: | Digital advertising and technology companies are resigned to a new privacy imperative. They are bracing for a world where third-party tracking will be restricted by design or by law. Digital resignation typically refers to how companies cultivate a sense of powerlessness about privacy among internet users. Our paper looks through this optic from the other end of the lens: How is the digital advertising industry coping with the increasing salience of privacy? Recent developments have forced companies to implement “privacy-preserving” designs—or at least promise some semblance of privacy. Yet, the industry remains dependent on flows of data and means of identification to enable still-desired targeting, measurement, and optimization. Our paper analyzes this contradiction by looking at systems that aim to replicate existing functionalities while protecting user “privacy.” We call this a form of “cynical resignation” and characterize its key maneuvers as follows: (a) sanitizing surveillance ; (b) party-hopping ; and (c) sabotage . We argue that this “cynical resignation” to a privacy imperative represents a policy failure. In the absence of decisive interventions into the underlying business models of data capitalism, companies offer techno-solutionism and self-regulations that seem to conform to new laws and norms while reinforcing commitments to data-driven personalization. This may benefit the largest tech companies, since their privileged access to first-party data will make more companies reliant on them, and their computational power will be even more valuable in a world where modeling is used to compensate for the loss of third-party data and traditional methods of personal identification. |
| Databáze: | Directory of Open Access Journals |
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