There is no such thing as a GDPR- or CCPA-compliant blockchain today. Any blockchain business that claims to be compliant under the current scope of either regulation does so purely as a marketing ploy to convince naive would-be enterprise customers to pick theirs over another blockchain. This is dishonest and would not hold up to legal scrutiny.

Identity, Privacy, Interoperability & Agency in Emerging Digital Worlds

Rethinking Digital Identity as a Defense Against Surveillance Capitalism

Internet users, policy analysts, and tech companies alike might be forgiven for feeling gaslit by the U.S. government’s manic, on-again-off-again relationship with consumer privacy.

That’s the question I was kicking around in my head after submitting an assignment for my public policy class (I’m a privacy researcher at UT Austin). So I figured I’d turn my assignment into a post, given that the topics touch on governance, coordination failures, game theory, and DAOs.

Note: This post is part two of a three-part series on digital privacy, concealed influence, and cognitive consent. Click here for part one.

Please sit down with a nice cup of coffee to digest this longform piece about the media consumption patterns that affect you daily. Misinformation is spreading among people like you, who may not have a baseline understanding about the very wonky technical and policy mechanics in place. This is my attempt to synthesize it, and to equip you to make your own decisions about how you process information and perceive truth. The links I provide at the bottom are readings I hand-picked if I were to teach a graduate seminar on disinformation and tech ethics, say. So if you do actually read them all, you will be significantly better informed about what’s going on, and be able to draw your own conclusions.

Note: This essay was originally published on Medium in August 2020.

Digital privacy is about having the ability to choose whom you allow access to your mind. Worry about the amount of signal you emit to advertisers, and not where that signal is stored.