Doctorow doesn't draw that conclusion, but it is an irresistible one, unless you want to pretend that this data doesn't exist, or should only be used to sell people sneakers.
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We're willing to divert entire sectors of the economy to fighting this virus (Ford wants to make ventilators!), so the resistance to repurposing the surveillance advertising economy is somewhat unexpected. But the reason is simple: no one wants to expose its full capabilities
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That includes privacy activists, who have a permanent blind spot to private-sector data collection because it is the economic foundation of a tech industry many of them take grant money from. And it includes journalists completely dependent on surveillance advertising.
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So we end up with a silly false dilemma (either do all epidemiology via phone call and questionnaire, or build baroque bluetooth apps) that ignores the most obvious solution: use whatever data is in hand to semi-automate and streamline the field work epidemiologists have to do
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I'm like two drinks away from asserting that the whole "contact tracing app" endeavor was a brilliant ruse to give the privacy activists an organic rawhide bone to chew on, so that no one will shine a light on the capabilities and reach of the actual surveillance economy
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