This is a good book for someone who is tangentially aware of big tech and how our information is being used, but doesn't quite understand it. The examples in this book do tend to be repetitive, but I think that mostly just helps to make sure that the audience sees the connections over time. While none of the information in this book was overly new to me, I really liked how the author presented the information and the writing was clearly aimed at a non-technical audience which I think Hoffman achieved. I liked the author's explanation of Section 230 especially as that is something that has been in the news a lot lately and can be confusing to understand.

The topic of this book is really compelling, and as a reporter who covers tech, I was interested to see what Hoffman had to say about the industry — but I found that about a third of the way through the book, I wasn't finding anything new. I did appreciate how easy the book was to understand, but I also recognize that it may quickly be outdated, and my heart aches for Hoffman thinking of all the work she put into this knowing tech is ever-evolving. I DNF the book but I don't think it's necessarily bad, just not right for me. I think it would be good for maybe parents or other trusting individuals in your life who sincerely don't understand why we should not blindly trust Big Tech.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free eARC.

Interesting but a repetition of well known examples in the introduction and not anything new if you are familiar or well read in this area.

I enjoyed how easy the writing and concepts were easy to digest. Not all tech books are this friendly. There was a lot of stuff in here I stopped to look up (thanks for the bibliography) because I couldn’t believe it. The data Big Tech collects feels like a dark hole we will never escape. There were some interesting proposed compromises or payments for our data that seem laughable for Big Tech to agree to, but fair. I feel uneasy after reading this and yet still helpless to control my own privacy data online from all the apps and searches that make life so easy to give in exchange. My only hesitation about recommending this book is that in 6 months it will be outdated, tech and news moves so fast. Worth the read if you want to freak yourself out and gain some insight. I wrote down quiet a few more books and concept sto read up on from the reference material.

Special thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Woah. This was a very eye-opening read. I think everybody who uses any social media should give this a read and realise the wake-up call this book may be. I was going to write a long review but I feel that I will not be able to do the content of the.book justice.

What do you do about important issues that people do not care about as much as they should? There are several examples today, climate change for example, but the one this book focuses on is just as important. Your Data, Their Billions is an attempted wake-up call concerning the impact of big tech on our lives, not so much because of the power of technology itself, but more because of the new monopolies that have sprung up around it. Jane S Hoffman is a US expert on public policy, consumer affairs and the environment, and has analysed the impact of the collection and monetization of personal data, along with the influence wielded by the "big five of big tech:" Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Google (or Alphabet, which owns Google).

Hoffman does her best to explain how personal data and the algorithms which process it impact our lives both for better and worse. For better, because intelligence about our activities and preferences can make our lives easier; for worse, because of the negatives inherent to monopolies, with a few very wealthy companies taking most of the profits, squashing competition, and extracting high prices for their services while paying low taxes.

Even more serious is the impact on society. Read this book, and it is hard to argue against the notion that without Facebook, neither the UK's Brexit nor the Trump presidency would have happened. Hoffman pays particular attention to the January 6 2021 attack on the US Capitol in Washington DC, as an example of how the polarizing affect of social media gave rise to radicalization and insurrection, fed by misinformation. Hoffman quotes Stanford researcher Renee DiResta: "These people are acting because they are convinced an election was stolen."

How has this happened? It is because of something very simple: big platforms like Facebook aim to keep people "engaged" because their business model is personalized advertising, but the algorithms that drive engagement also turn out to drive outrage and falsehood, because these are things that engage people, as well as keeping people in self-reinforcing groups that exclude contrary opinions.

The key sentences in this book are I think these: "The events of January 6, 2021 make it clear that we can't continue to function peaceably as a nation under the lax social media content policies as they now exist. In order to avoid a scenario in which we're dealing after the next crisis with various sets of confusing – and perhaps, conflicting and even crippling – social media policies, set hurriedly, arbitrarily, and piecemeal by each individual social media entity or state in the union, it's imperative that our lawmakers take the matter into hand now, and handle it as thoughtfully and seriously as it deserves."

Hoffman does propose solutions, including a US "Technology Fairness Commission" which would use regulation to remediate these harms. She also proposes breaking up the "big five" to reduce their power and foster competition. It is hard to be optimistic though, partly because of the huge lobbying effort from some same big five, and partly because the majority of people are too busy checking their Facebook feeds to pay attention to these issues. That is understandable; these issues are not particularly easy to understand and may be perceived as political in nature when really they are not aligned with any particular political viewpoint, only with the notion that fairness and truth are desirable characteristics of society.

This is a brave effort both to explain what is happening and to propose solutions, though I did find it a bit over-long and repetitive especially in the first half of the book which sets out the background, and a bit US-centric though the reality is that all these "big five" are US-based but with global impact. A good read on a matter of huge importance.