Privacy or Profit - Why Not Both?

Sep 9, 2019

Tech companies profiting from user data while claiming to prioritize privacy, skepticism about their true intentions, ad networks and tracking practices still prevalent. Facebook and Apple's privacy strategies and shortcomings, mobile device tracking, privacy-focused alternatives. DuckDuckGo's non-tracking search engine, profitability, and benefits of privacy. UBT platform empowering users to profit from their data. Use of anonymized and aggregated data, importance of privacy and control over personal information.

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Introduction

00:00 • 5min

Privacy Approaches of Facebook and Apple

05:27 • 7min

Protecting Privacy Online with DuckDuckGo

12:00 • 8min

Empowering Users to Profit from Their Data and the Emergence of UBT

20:12 • 3min

Anonymized and Aggregated Data, Privacy, and the Shifting Dynamics of Consumer-Company Relationship

22:49 • 4min

Every day, our data hits the market when we sign online. It’s for sale, and we’re left to wonder if tech companies will ever choose to protect our privacy rather than reap large profits with our information. But, is the choice — profit or privacy — a false dilemma? Meet the people who have built profitable tech businesses while also respecting your privacy. Fact check if Facebook and Google have really found religion in privacy. And, imagine a world where you could actually get paid to share your data.

In this episode, Oli Frost recalls what happened when he auctioned his personal data on eBay. Jeremy Tillman from Ghostery reveals the scope of how much ad-tracking is really taking place online. Patrick Jackson at Disconnect.me breaks down Big Tech’s privacy pivot. DuckDuckGo’s Gabriel Weinberg explains why his private search engine has been profitable. And Dana Budzyn walks us through how her company, UBDI, hopes to give consumers the ability to sell their data for cash.

IRL is an original podcast from Firefox. For more on the series, go to irlpodcast.org.

Read about Patrick Jackson and Geoffrey Fowler's privacy experiment.

Learn more about DuckDuckGo, an alternative to Google search, at duckduckgo.com.

And, we're pleased to add a little more about Firefox's business here as well — one that puts user privacy first and is also profitable. Mozilla was founded as a community open source project in 1998, and currently consists of two organizations: the 501(c)3 Mozilla Foundation, which backs emerging leaders and mobilizes citizens to create a global movement for the health of the internet; and its wholly owned subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation, which creates Firefox products, advances public policy in support of internet user rights and explores new technologies that give people more control and privacy in their lives online. Firefox products have never — and never will never — buy or sell user data. Because of its unique structure, Mozilla stands apart from its peers in the technology field as one of the most impactful and successful social enterprises in the world. Learn more about Mozilla and Firefox at mozilla.org.