I sometimes hear Netflix lumped in with “Big Tech” or explicitly likened to Facebook, Google and Amazon, which is understandable in terms of newness, internet reliance and reach, but also can be unfair, in the context of data tracking and privacy violations.
While Netflix does track some data (primarily, the device identifier, connection and media watched while on the service), it’s not a data tracking company like Google* and Facebook* are. Those two companies provide ostensibly “free” services, which make money via 2 primary methods: the display of advertisements (from anyone who will pay, including disinformation/lies from both domestic and foreign sources) AND the collection and sale of personal information which was directly provided or can be inferred about their users (based on usage). In the case of Amazon, they also collect significant user data, although they tend to use it internally to increase their product sales, so it’s not commensurate with Facebook or Google, in that regard (although Amazon has other problems, including speed-running their warehouse workers*).
Continue reading “In Defense of Netflix”