Beware of “privacy-washing”, Silicon Valley’s latest corporate responsibility trend

Silicon Valley’s internet behemoths are well aware that they must at least pretend to care about social and environmental issues if they want to engage with consumers and employees. Although we are used to seeing companies called out for corporate greenwashing, a new trend is starting to emerge. 

Much like greenwashing, privacy-washing has become tech’s latest in-vogue ‘corporate social responsibility’ cause. Zuckerberg’s “ privacy-focused vision for social networking ” is a good example of this. Similarly, the recent discovery of Google’s hidden, and permanent, record of its users purchasing history is somewhat at odds with its plans for a European data privacy hub.

Measures like this represent little more than “Potemkin reform”, merely aimed at creating the impression of change. In a nutshell, the main issue is that these companies are promising far more than their business models will allow them to deliver. The dominance of Silicon Valley firms operating within closed, privacy-exploiting revenue systems is seemingly unchanged. Think of it this way: just as an oil firm that rails against CO2 emissions won’t go carbon neutral through marketing alone, a business built on data monetisation won’t survive without data. 

Only time will tell whether employees and consumers buy into this new wave of corporate privacy-washing. For the socially-conscious consumer or tech worker, companies offering open, federated and permissionless services provide numerous alternatives to those that run on data-monetisation. Good for your soul.