Yes, you heard it right Amnesty International in one of its recent reports has called the surveillance-based’ ’business model given by tech and social media giants like Google and Facebook respectively tend to remain incompatible when it comes to human rights and right to privacy and threat. In a recent 60-page report released by Amnesty International claims that both the companies have given reasons to many businesses particularly the advertising companies, start ups, data brokers and even a couple of non-tech companies to follow them at core thus looking to monetise the personal data they have. Of late, the model presented and championed by these tech giants have become the blueprint for the world wide web thus reaching inside our homes, streets, workplaces through the IoT or Internet of Things claimed the report.
Offers for targeted advertisement
‘Surveillance Giants: How the business model of Google and Facebook threatens human rights’ is how the Amnesty International report has been named. It explains the way the tech giants have become the power in the business world as both these groups dominate a lot on social media, and things like search results, messaging, video content, mobile platforms and web-browsing. As per reports, both the tech giants Google and Facebook in their competition for each other try to lure advertisers offering lucrative predictions assuring them to deliver some ‘highly targeted advertisements to their target audience. These often comes with some complex combination of their profile features. Talking about the same global body that stands for International human rights organisation claimed that companies and groups in the market have the onus to respect the values of human rights, which exist independently of the capability/willingness to fulfil to get the human rights obligations.
The Recommendations for states and companies
The said report by Amnesty International has set of recommendations for companies and groups. These recommend the companies to take the right measures against the menace. The reports also exhorts the government to chalk out preventive measurements to ensure that the use and access to the key services of social and digital media along with its infrastructure remains not conditional on ubiquitous surveillance. The reports also suggest these tech giants companies often lobby against things like data protection privacy legislation. On the contrary, the technology companies should take affirmative action to remediate the right set of human rights abuses to which they seem to have caused or contributed via their business operations claims the reports.