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The Information Trade
Book

The Information Trade

How Big Tech Conquers Countries, Challenges Our Rights, and Disrupts Our World

HarperOne, 2020
First Edition: 2020 plus...


Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Controversial
  • Eye Opening
  • Concrete Examples

Recommendation

Big-tech companies – net states – dominate people’s lives in a way activist Stewart Brand couldn’t have imagined when he said, “Information wants to be free.” Now, data are neither free nor protected. Consumers feel overwhelmed and powerless in the web world. Alexis Wichowski, Columbia professor and New York City municipal tech official, asks if net states and nation-states can coexist. She explores whether users – you and your company – can sort out the benefits and dangers of life online and control their content. In this stellar explanation of today’s threats, Wichowski issues a persuasive call for a tech user’s bill of rights.

Take-Aways

  • Digital, international net states – big tech companies – are businesses, but act more like nations.
  • Activist and Whole Earth Catalog founder Stewart Brand first proclaimed, “Information wants to be free.” It doesn’t.
  • Net states operate in the background.

About the Author

Alexis Wichowski is the deputy chief technology officer for the City of New York and an adjunct professor of technology and media at Columbia University.