Data and Goliath: Privacy Expert Explains the Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World

Bruce Schneier says there are similarities between government and corporate spying.

By Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez / Democracy Now!

Leading security and privacy researcher Bruce Schneier appeared on Democracy Now! to talk about the golden age of surveillance and his new book, "Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World." In it, he mentioned that companies use surveillance to manipulate prices as well as news stories and advertising. He told Amy Goodman: “The ads you see aren’t going to be the ads someone else sees, based on your interests, but also based on what the companies believe is your income level, how good a customer you are. You’re going to see different search results than somebody else. So, depending on your political persuasion, you’ll see different advertisements. You’ll see different offers. So you might get a different credit card offer than someone else. And that might be based on your income, on proxies for your minority status. We see a lot of this very personalized advertising designed to influence you and you alone.”