Lecture 1
Examination: Oral exam with written preparation, there will be NO group assignment
Students get questions regarding course materials. “Big” questions + some short questions
Big questions will be distributed beforehand. Students can prepare and are required to upload
preparation (there is not one clear answer: you have to discuss about it)
During the oral exam we will discuss the answers. The short questions can be definitions or
something else that isn’t too hard this can’t be prepared, I have to learn this by heart
“Advancing Society” courses focus on the development of your analytical and personal capabilities to
study (and solve) the modern dilemmas that emerge in today’s advancing society
Example: innovations of the Digital Age
Dilemma:
Digital communication can be analyzed easier
New opportunities
- Reduced cost of communication (we can communicate easily over the world about COVID-19)
- Improved decision-making processes
- Increased relevance and personalization
New Threats
- Increased surveillance potential
- Risk of unwanted discrimination
- Data leaks and hacking
data is much easier to get access to and to leak (think about Edward Snowdan, Wikileaks)
New requirements
- GDPR (Dutch: AVG)
In the past, you could download a list with all the members of your tennis club. Nowadays, it
is unthinkable this is possible (privacy law)
,This course is basically not a course about innovation, but you can see it is about modern dilemmas
driven by innovation.
we chose to focus on privacy (or lack of it) in the digital age for this advancing society course
Another connection:
Read this article!
Objective of this course:
The main objective of the course is to introduce you to various aspects of privacy in a data-
driven society as well as economic models that allow the analysis of some of these models
Privacy is a multifaceted concept
different angels:
- economic analysis
- legal concepts
- policy aspects
- managerial implications
Common Privacy Myths:
“There is no privacy in the digital age”
“No one cares about privacy anymore”
“If you haven’t done anything wrong, you (should) have nothing to hide”
Case e-readers:
Accepting terms and conditions can imply providing
- last page read
- up-time
- log files
- content usage
- search queries
- location
- voice information
- signal strength
-…
We can just NOT give permission but then also not use the e-reader
But if we give permission, do we only lose out on privacy
Maybe we gain privacy as well?
Gaining privacy with e-readers?
, The “Fifty Shades” series:
- Initially published in Twilight fan fiction forums
- Moved to own website due to explicit content
- Then self-published as e-book
- Rising popularity leads to paperback publication
One potential reason for success: e-book nature allowed more discrete reading… and
purchasing!
No privacy in the Digital Age?
Not necessarily!
- But new trade-offs emerge, such as:
tracking by firms
versus
social pressure
This battle is very invisible in the category of social networks. If you have a Facebook account for
example, you are very susceptible to getting tracked by this firm. There can be some social pressure
from your friends for example to get engaged in such a social network account
Who cares about privacy?
“People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information
and different kinds, but more openly and with more people
“That social norm is just something that has evolved over time”
Mark Zuckerberg, 2010
Is Zuckerberg right? (see figure next page)
If you move to the age-categories, you see the younger the more people do on social networking.
To some degree, Zuckerberg is right that younger people have new norms and that’s why they
are sharing more information than older people
, What about himself?
According to himself, privacy is worth a lot!
Common Privacy Myths:
“There is no privacy in the digital age”
“Young people don’t care about privacy” (the difference between the first time these myths
were mentioned)
“If you haven’t done anything wrong, you (should) have nothing to hide”
Young people don’t care about their privacy?
Younger people are more likely to share
information, but seem to be more engaged to
use strategies to make it more difficult to track
them
Nobody cares anymore?
Plenty of evidence that people do care
about privacy
But it may not be easy to do so
So you have nothing to hide?
“Face value” good experiment to see
what friends or family members matter
Discussion
You could ask people “can I get your…”
- Passwords?
- search history?
- bank statements
- medical records
Why do you have curtains?
Why do you lock the toilet?
Why do you wear clothes?
- the answer to everything above is that we want some privacy
Examination: Oral exam with written preparation, there will be NO group assignment
Students get questions regarding course materials. “Big” questions + some short questions
Big questions will be distributed beforehand. Students can prepare and are required to upload
preparation (there is not one clear answer: you have to discuss about it)
During the oral exam we will discuss the answers. The short questions can be definitions or
something else that isn’t too hard this can’t be prepared, I have to learn this by heart
“Advancing Society” courses focus on the development of your analytical and personal capabilities to
study (and solve) the modern dilemmas that emerge in today’s advancing society
Example: innovations of the Digital Age
Dilemma:
Digital communication can be analyzed easier
New opportunities
- Reduced cost of communication (we can communicate easily over the world about COVID-19)
- Improved decision-making processes
- Increased relevance and personalization
New Threats
- Increased surveillance potential
- Risk of unwanted discrimination
- Data leaks and hacking
data is much easier to get access to and to leak (think about Edward Snowdan, Wikileaks)
New requirements
- GDPR (Dutch: AVG)
In the past, you could download a list with all the members of your tennis club. Nowadays, it
is unthinkable this is possible (privacy law)
,This course is basically not a course about innovation, but you can see it is about modern dilemmas
driven by innovation.
we chose to focus on privacy (or lack of it) in the digital age for this advancing society course
Another connection:
Read this article!
Objective of this course:
The main objective of the course is to introduce you to various aspects of privacy in a data-
driven society as well as economic models that allow the analysis of some of these models
Privacy is a multifaceted concept
different angels:
- economic analysis
- legal concepts
- policy aspects
- managerial implications
Common Privacy Myths:
“There is no privacy in the digital age”
“No one cares about privacy anymore”
“If you haven’t done anything wrong, you (should) have nothing to hide”
Case e-readers:
Accepting terms and conditions can imply providing
- last page read
- up-time
- log files
- content usage
- search queries
- location
- voice information
- signal strength
-…
We can just NOT give permission but then also not use the e-reader
But if we give permission, do we only lose out on privacy
Maybe we gain privacy as well?
Gaining privacy with e-readers?
, The “Fifty Shades” series:
- Initially published in Twilight fan fiction forums
- Moved to own website due to explicit content
- Then self-published as e-book
- Rising popularity leads to paperback publication
One potential reason for success: e-book nature allowed more discrete reading… and
purchasing!
No privacy in the Digital Age?
Not necessarily!
- But new trade-offs emerge, such as:
tracking by firms
versus
social pressure
This battle is very invisible in the category of social networks. If you have a Facebook account for
example, you are very susceptible to getting tracked by this firm. There can be some social pressure
from your friends for example to get engaged in such a social network account
Who cares about privacy?
“People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information
and different kinds, but more openly and with more people
“That social norm is just something that has evolved over time”
Mark Zuckerberg, 2010
Is Zuckerberg right? (see figure next page)
If you move to the age-categories, you see the younger the more people do on social networking.
To some degree, Zuckerberg is right that younger people have new norms and that’s why they
are sharing more information than older people
, What about himself?
According to himself, privacy is worth a lot!
Common Privacy Myths:
“There is no privacy in the digital age”
“Young people don’t care about privacy” (the difference between the first time these myths
were mentioned)
“If you haven’t done anything wrong, you (should) have nothing to hide”
Young people don’t care about their privacy?
Younger people are more likely to share
information, but seem to be more engaged to
use strategies to make it more difficult to track
them
Nobody cares anymore?
Plenty of evidence that people do care
about privacy
But it may not be easy to do so
So you have nothing to hide?
“Face value” good experiment to see
what friends or family members matter
Discussion
You could ask people “can I get your…”
- Passwords?
- search history?
- bank statements
- medical records
Why do you have curtains?
Why do you lock the toilet?
Why do you wear clothes?
- the answer to everything above is that we want some privacy
