From your smartphone to your car to your television – Big Tech is tracking you.

Here’s the truth: Most Big Tech companies are really just Big Surveillance companies. With Facebook and Google making most of their profits off advertising, they have a deep financial incentive to collect as much information on you as possible in order to sell you to advertisers. [1] Even companies you don’t expect are collecting and selling your data in order to maximize profit.

This is surveillance advertising — the extensive tracking and profiling of individuals and groups, who are then micro-targeted with ads based on their behavioral history, relationships, and identity. And we need to put a stop to it.

Last week, Congress re-introduced the Banning Surveillance Advertising Act – bold legislation that will ban Big Tech’s toxic business model of surveillance advertising. Urge your senators and representatives to pass the Banning Surveillance Advertising Act:

Contact Lawmakers

Some examples of how you’re being tracked in unexpected ways:

• When you watch TV: Smart TVs are collecting information about what you’re watching, how long you’re watching it, and where you watch it. That data on you is then sold to advertisers. Companies like Roku, earned $2.7 billion in 2021 off targeted advertisements on the platform. [2]
• While you drive: Yes, your cars watch, listen, and collect information about what you do and where you go. Modern cars are a privacy nightmare. Of 25 car brands recently tested for privacy, all the tested brands collect more personal data than necessary. 84% of the brands sell your data, and 56% of the tested brands would also share your information with the government or law enforcement in response to a request. [3]
• How you spend your money: The credit card company, Mastercard, sells cardholder transaction data through third party online data marketplaces. It gives advertisers data on where people shop, how much they spend, and on what days. [4]

Not only is this invasive of our privacy, but the toxic business model fuels the spread of misinformation, extremism, hate, and discrimination by incentivizing the creation and recommendation of content that keeps us hooked for as long as possible to target us with ads.

Friend, this is the reality we live in with Big Tech’s surveillance advertising business model. Take a minute to send a short note to your member of Congress to pass the Banning Surveillance Advertising Act.

Companies shouldn’t endlessly track us for profit, plain and simple. Banning surveillance advertising will help strengthen our privacy.

Thanks for taking action,

Nicole Gill
Co-founder and Executive Director
Accountable Tech

1. Amnesty International: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/what-is-big-techs-surveillance-based-business-model/

2.The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/01/smart-tvs-sony-lg-cheap/672614/

3. Mozilla Foundation: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/

4. U.S. Pirg Education Fund: https://pirg.org/edfund/resources/how-mastercard-sells-data/

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