MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2019) A surveillance-based business model of Google and Facebook represents a blatant violation of their users' right to privacy, a prominent human rights watchdog said on Thursday.
"Despite the real value of the services they provide, Google and Facebook's platforms come at a systemic cost. The companies' surveillance-based business model forces people to make a Faustian bargain, whereby they are only able to enjoy their human rights online by submitting to a system predicated on human rights abuse. Firstly, an assault on the right to privacy on an unprecedented scale," Amnesty International said in its report dubbed "Surveillance Giants: How The Business Model of Google And Facebook Threatens Human Rights."
Moreover, using Facebook and Google resulted in effects that posed risks to other human rights, including the freedom of thought, expression and the right to non-discrimination, the watchdog argued.
"The gradual erosion of privacy at the hands of Google and Facebook is a direct result of the companies establishing dominant market power and control over the global 'public square'," the report insisted.
The document explained that the two tech giants allowed users access them free of charge but gathered their private data across the web in exchange, subsequently monetizing it to an extent incompatible with the right to privacy.
"The abuse of privacy that is core to Facebook and Google's surveillance-based business model is starkly demonstrated by the companies' long history of privacy scandals," the report argued.
It was difficult to ignore the numerous cases of compromising user data by Facebook and Google, despite the two companies' pledges on their commitment to privacy, the watchdog maintained.
