Author: Shilpi Gupta

There are over 4 billion users of the internet. During the evolution and growth of the internet over the last 25 years, the internet has gone on to become extremely consolidated and controlled by a few large global corporations. This evolution has been a slow process – like the Boiling Frog Theory, and none of us took notice of it while it was happening. There was no big jolt on any one day. Just a slow and incremental creep up of control and dominance of the digital world – one product or new functionality at a time by just a handful of these large global corporations, resulting in an enormous consolidation of digital power – frequently translated into the physical world too – in the hands of these few large global corporations.

Would you believe that 95% of all the data on the internet is owned or controlled by just less than five corporations? If we put all the data on the internet together – everything digital that is on the internet with all our emails, attachments, messages, pictures, videos, documents, chats, digital interactions, and all kinds of other digital assets run into billions of gigabytes – over 95% of all that data in billions of gigabytes are stored on the servers owned, managed, controlled and accessed by just a few of these large corporations.

As a result, they have complete access and control of all the data – all our personal data on their servers. It’s their servers, their product, their IP, and their infrastructure that we use to store,

retrieve, share and save all our digital assets. Naturally, they have complete visibility of our data, and they know everything about us – our location, preferences, habits, secrets, fears, relationships, health… pretty much everything. In most cases, we don’t pay. So, they monetize that information to continue to make available these services to us.

This free ride was fun for all of us for a while, but the world has now begun to wake up, take notice and complain about personal digital privacy. The Google Pizza joke or what happened with Facebook/ Cambridge Analytica were just examples that made clear to everyone how a detailed understanding of who amongst us are on the fringe of a topic or in an election, and specific knowledge of what moves us, can give these companies the power to influence and significantly shape world events that would have a very tangible impact on all our lives. And these are private, for-profit organizations with a fiduciary responsibility to deliver ROI to their shareholders.

Concerns around Digital Privacy

The consolidation of digital power has left us users of the internet with no control or privacy on the internet. While most of us just shrug it off with a ‘so what!’This lack of internet privacy is beginning to bite.

The biggest loss is the loss of self. Their systems deeply and intimately understand us, our preferences, biases, and even our private fears such that the right pitch of a story or calibrated highlighting of facts can bring about an action from us that is beneficial to the interest groups behind the systems. This can have a catastrophic impact on the societies that we live in and it can go on to negate the very concept of free will, and we wouldn’t even know it.

The impact on our everyday life is also substantial. The system can go on to influence what we buy, where we buy, how we choose to spend our time, what we watch, or even what we believe in. The systems understand our relationships – both public and private, and the algorithms can generate patterns that can lead us into cohorts that we may not consciously choose to walk into.

The real worry is that, while these systems are continuously evolving and increasing their grip on our psyche individually and collectively – like a headless Hydra, the system by itself is

configured to maximize commercial profits more than the collective social good. Most of these private companies are run by professional Boards that are laden with the fiduciary responsibility to maximize shareholder returns.

Efforts are afoot but not enough

Governments and institutions are waking up to this problem. Efforts are being made to curb the massive consolidation of digital power. Laws are being made to control these large corporations, and rules are being laid down on what they can or cannot do. Punitive measures are being taken for violations. Some of the best examples of such measures are General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which became enforceable in May 2018 and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) which became effective in January 2020. There are a number of other such steps taken by different governments including the Personal Data Protection Act of 2012, The Computer Misuse Act and The Cybersecurity Act 2018 by the Singapore government, The Privacy Amendment Bill of 2018 in New Zealand, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act in Canada, etc.

However, these are not enough, and the reason is simple. As long as you are using products and services offered by other companies, and your data is lying on the servers owned by those companies, those companies will see your data, and will analyze it, and will act on it. Unless you keep your data on the internet in a place that no company can access, you won’t get real privacy on the internet.

For example, in our everyday life in the physical world, we visit a lot of public places such as offices, schools, shopping malls, cafes and restaurants, hospitals, cinemas, parks, etc – all public places visited by many. No one expects to get personal privacy in any of these public places. However, after visiting all the public places, everyone goes home at the end of the day. A home is a private place for everyone. We expect and get personal privacy at home. Without a home – an unthinkable concept, none of us would have had a place where we get personal privacy in our everyday life. We need a digital houm on the internet for ourselves to get privacy like in the physical world.

Houm is an innovative consumer internet product that is focused on creating real privacy on the internet like never before. We are focused on bringing back real digital privacy on the internet for the consumer, via the revolutionary concept of ‘private ownership on the internet by the end consumer’ – a first of its kind!

Essentially, Houm enables each consumer to build and actually own a private place on the internet – a digital home. You can create your private network inside your Houm and communicate privately with the inner circle of people in your lives via Private Chat, Private Voice Calls, or Private Video Calls. It’s a first because it enables consumers to have houm to houm communication (with their own domain) without any other organization including Houm Technology being able to intercept or analyze the interaction. Pls see houm.me/FAQ to get more information about our product.

You can build a Houm and experience the product at www.houm.me or Android or iOS. Privacy is not the opposite of sharing – rather, it is control over sharing.

There are over 4 billion users of the internet. During the evolution and growth of the internet over the last 25 years, the internet has gone on to become extremely consolidated and controlled by a few large global corporations. This evolution has been a slow process – like the Boiling Frog Theory, and none of us took notice of it while it was happening. There was no big jolt on any one day. Just a slow and incremental creep up of control and dominance of the digital world – one product or new functionality at a time by just a handful of these large global corporations, resulting in an enormous consolidation of digital power – frequently translated into the physical world too – in the hands of these few large global corporations.

Would you believe that 95% of all the data on the internet is owned or controlled by just less than five corporations? If we put all the data on the internet together – everything digital that is on the internet with all our emails, attachments, messages, pictures, videos, documents, chats, digital interactions, and all kinds of other digital assets run into billions of gigabytes – over 95% of all that data in billions of gigabytes are stored on the servers owned, managed, controlled and accessed by just a few of these large corporations.

As a result, they have complete access and control of all the data – all our personal data on their servers. It’s their servers, their product, their IP, and their infrastructure that we use to store,

retrieve, share and save all our digital assets. Naturally, they have complete visibility of our data, and they know everything about us – our location, preferences, habits, secrets, fears, relationships, health… pretty much everything. In most cases, we don’t pay. So, they monetize that information to continue to make available these services to us.

This free ride was fun for all of us for a while, but the world has now begun to wake up, take notice and complain about personal digital privacy. The Google Pizza joke or what happened with Facebook/ Cambridge Analytica were just examples that made clear to everyone how a detailed understanding of who amongst us are on the fringe of a topic or in an election, and specific knowledge of what moves us, can give these companies the power to influence and significantly shape world events that would have a very tangible impact on all our lives. And these are private, for-profit organizations with a fiduciary responsibility to deliver ROI to their shareholders.

Concerns around Digital Privacy

The consolidation of digital power has left us users of the internet with no control or privacy on the internet. While most of us just shrug it off with a ‘so what!’This lack of internet privacy is beginning to bite.

The biggest loss is the loss of self. Their systems deeply and intimately understand us, our preferences, biases, and even our private fears such that the right pitch of a story or calibrated highlighting of facts can bring about an action from us that is beneficial to the interest groups behind the systems. This can have a catastrophic impact on the societies that we live in and it can go on to negate the very concept of free will, and we wouldn’t even know it.

The impact on our everyday life is also substantial. The system can go on to influence what we buy, where we buy, how we choose to spend our time, what we watch, or even what we believe in. The systems understand our relationships – both public and private, and the algorithms can generate patterns that can lead us into cohorts that we may not consciously choose to walk into.

The real worry is that, while these systems are continuously evolving and increasing their grip on our psyche individually and collectively – like a headless Hydra, the system by itself is

configured to maximize commercial profits more than the collective social good. Most of these private companies are run by professional Boards that are laden with the fiduciary responsibility to maximize shareholder returns.

Efforts are afoot but not enough

Governments and institutions are waking up to this problem. Efforts are being made to curb the massive consolidation of digital power. Laws are being made to control these large corporations, and rules are being laid down on what they can or cannot do. Punitive measures are being taken for violations. Some of the best examples of such measures are General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which became enforceable in May 2018 and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) which became effective in January 2020. There are a number of other such steps taken by different governments including the Personal Data Protection Act of 2012, The Computer Misuse Act and The Cybersecurity Act 2018 by the Singapore government, The Privacy Amendment Bill of 2018 in New Zealand, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act in Canada, etc.

However, these are not enough, and the reason is simple. As long as you are using products and services offered by other companies, and your data is lying on the servers owned by those companies, those companies will see your data, and will analyze it, and will act on it. Unless you keep your data on the internet in a place that no company can access, you won’t get real privacy on the internet.

For example, in our everyday life in the physical world, we visit a lot of public places such as offices, schools, shopping malls, cafes and restaurants, hospitals, cinemas, parks, etc – all public places visited by many. No one expects to get personal privacy in any of these public places. However, after visiting all the public places, everyone goes home at the end of the day. A home is a private place for everyone. We expect and get personal privacy at home. Without a home – an unthinkable concept, none of us would have had a place where we get personal privacy in our everyday life. We need a digital houm on the internet for ourselves to get privacy like in the physical world.

Houm is an innovative consumer internet product that is focused on creating real privacy on the internet like never before. We are focused on bringing back real digital privacy on the internet for the consumer, via the revolutionary concept of ‘private ownership on the internet by the end consumer’ – a first of its kind!

Essentially, Houm enables each consumer to build and actually own a private place on the internet – a digital home. You can create your private network inside your Houm and communicate privately with the inner circle of people in your lives via Private Chat, Private Voice Calls, or Private Video Calls. It’s a first because it enables consumers to have houm to houm communication (with their own domain) without any other organization including Houm Technology being able to intercept or analyze the interaction. Pls see houm.me/FAQ to get more information about our product.Internet Privacy

You can build a Houm and experience the product at www.houm.me or Android or iOS. Privacy is not the opposite of sharing – rather, it is control over sharing.