On Big Data, Privacy, and Transparency

Concerns about privacy did not begin with the era of Big Data or the advent of Facebook. They've been with us since the advent of the Internet. For instance, during the dot-com boom, companies like DoubleClick (now owned by Google) pushed the privacy envelope as it attempted to serve up relevant ads via cookies.

In August of 2012, the Federal Trade Commission “fined Google $22.5 million ...to settle charges that it had bypassed privacy settings in Apple’s Safari browser to be able to track users of the browser and show them advertisements, and violated an earlier privacy settlement with the agency.” As The New York Times' article points out, the fine represents “the largest civil penalty ever levied by the commission.”

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