What stays in Vegas: the world of personal data—lifeblood of big business—and the end of privacy as we know it

337 Pages·2014·10.32 MB·English

by  Adam Tanner

W H A T S T A Y S I N V E G A S
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WHAT
STAYS IN
VEGAS
THE WORLD OF PERSONAL DATA—
LIFEBLOOD OF BIG BUSINESS—
AND THE END OF PRIVACY
AS WE KNOW IT
AdAm TAnner
PublicAffAirs
New York
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Copyright © 2014 by Adam Tanner.
Published in the United States by PublicAfairs™,
a Member of the Perseus Books Group.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written
permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and
reviews. For information, address PublicAfairs, 250 West 57th Street, 15th Floor,
New York, NY 10107.
PublicAfairs books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the US
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contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut
Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, call [phone], ext. 5000, or e-mail
To Celia, Clarissa, and Adrian
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CONTENTS
Introduction: Spies, ix
1 What Happens Here, Stays Here?, 1
2 A Harvard Professor Comes to Vegas, 7
3 Loyalty, 21
4 Casino Data Gathering in Action, 33
5 A Celebrity, a Private Eye, and a Hit Man, 41
6 Dossiers on (Virtually) Everyone, 51
7 Direct Marketing, 75
8 Recession, 91
9 The Puzzle of Your Identity, 97
10 The Hunt for a Mystery Woman, 115
11 Thousands of Eyes, 123
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vi Contents
12 Mugged, 137
13 Internet Advertising, 157
14 Seeking the Goldilocks Balance, 171
15 New Frontiers in Customer Data, 181
16 Casino Adventures in Three Cities, 193
17 Embracing Outside Data, 209
18 The Not-So-Enriching Business of Privacy, 225
19 Empowerment, 237
Acknowledgments, 255
Appendix: Take Control of Your Data, 259
Notes, 269
Bibliography, 297
Index, 303
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INTRODUCTION
Spies
The Bad Ol’ Days
In 1988, I involuntarily became the subject of old-fashioned data
gathering. Spies followed me around Communist East Germany and
recorded my every move. Tat year I was visiting Dresden, the great
Baroque art capital that had sufered widespread destruction from the
massive Allied frebombing in World War II. Even decades after the
war, some of the city’s ornate buildings, including the Royal Palace, still
lay in rubble. East Germany’s government prided itself on operating
an especially efcient Ministry of State Security, the Stasi, to monitor
suspicious activities and guard against potential enemies. Te Stasi mo-
bilized their forces for my arrival, and agents made a concerted efort
to learn everything they could about me.
I was researching the Frommer’s travel guide Eastern Europe and
Yugoslavia on $25 a Day, and I spent my days visiting hotels, restau-
rants, and museums, as well as puzzling out how to do things such as
buy train tickets when lines snaked out the station door. Communism
was crumbling during these years, yet the secret police continued their
dedicated vigilance. Future Russian President Vladimir Putin served in
Dresden during that time as a junior KGB spy.
On August 2, a mild day with temperatures mostly in the sixties,
I strolled around the Semper Opera, a nineteenth-century structure
ix
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