Privacy: And How to Get it Back

In this forceful short book, technology guru and author of the best-selling Social Media is Bullshit (St. Martins Press) Brandon Mendelson exposes the crude reality behind the smiley face of internet networking: data trading. We are all auctioning our personal information, the book argues, to the highest bidder. Mendelson discusses the end of privacy from a contemporary perspective, including chapters on:

• Metadata and its uses

• Data auctions

• The Internet of Things

• The use of social media for surveillance and suppression

• Just how safe is Cloud technology

• The Big Business of Big Data

• How online retailers stalk, without permission, their customers

• Anonymous and web activism

• The internet’s dark side: Silk Road, hacking, extortion

• EFF and other bodies promoting internet user rights

When we talk about the so-called ‘end of privacy’, we conjure up images of state-run agencies secretly monitoring and recording our every move. Whilst this is the case, the true perpetrator in this permeating culture of intrusion is not a third party; its our very selves. We willingly broadcast every moment of our lives in exchange for a moment’s worth of virtual attention. Mendelson, artfully and through personal narratives and journalism, tells the story of how we have undermined one of our greatest societal assets.