Financial Times December 6, 2020
Data about the most intimate details of our lives should not be exploited by corporations
“Alexa, are my antidepressants arriving today?”
Such queries may become commonplace following Amazon’s decision to sell prescription medicine in the US, but they also raise broader questions over privacy and human rights.
Amazon Pharmacy’s promise of 80 per cent discounts suggests that the US retailer sees opportunities not in realising immediate profits, but in extracting a more valuable resource: data about the most intimate details of our lives.
Five centuries ago, the land and resources of the “New World” were seized by colonial powers, transforming the global economy and changing the lives of local populations. Today a new land-grab is under way:...