Connect or Collect

A Short Sharp Shock

We live in a world of data farms, mountains and lakes … we used to call them ’warehouses’ - but I think the names changed because farms, mountains and lakes sound so much more natural and thus ‘acceptable’ … than warehouses.

Bottom line … you know who some of the culprits are, though in some cases you don’t because names like ‘Palantir’ fly below the radar in the mind of the general public.

Another name that you wouldn’t automatically associate with the surveillance economy is Oracle …

Oracle is an important part of the tracking and data industry. It has claimed to have amassed detailed dossiers on 5 billion people and generates $42.4 billion in annual revenue.

~ Source

On the click-through, is a piece about a class action against Oracle’s worldwide surveillance machine. If you are in the tech industry, you know who Oracle is. I myself spent close to 9 years of my life in the institution and still I didn’t know how deep down the rabbit hole they had disappeared … though given their core competency, it makes sense.

And let’s not forget that Oracle is now being trusted to run the US TikTok servers. What could possibly go wrong?

Now Imagine A Different World.

Imagine a world where each of us manages and controls access to our data and shares it on an as-needed basis with any organization that asks for it - on our terms.

Far fetched?

Never take off?

Well - the technology exists. The processes exist. What is missing is whether ‘we the people’ care enough to insist this is how we want to do business.

Yeah. It’s not going to happen!

But what if we demonstrated to businesses that if they take this approach … an approach where a business only connects to data and doesn’t collect data … that will allow the business to;

• make more money

• build better customer relationships

• reduce costs

• create richer experiences

… maybe then the world will change?