#peter kirstein lecture

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Red Team Blues tour

In just a few days, my next novel, Red Team Blues, will be released in all English territories. It’s an “anti-finance finance thriller” — my most commercial novel to date, about a 67-year-old high-tech forensic accountant fighting for his life as he unwinds a cryptocurrency heist:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865847/redteamblues

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/19/whats-wrong-with-iowa/#red-team-blues-tour

My publishers are sending me around the world on a tour of the US, Canada, and the UK, with a bonus stop in Berlin! When I do book tours, each stop is a mix of a reading, a little background talk about the book, and then a kind of AMA with the audience. They’re incredibly fun and rewarding, and over the decades I’ve been doing them, I’ve had some of the most memorable and important interactions of my life. What’s more, these tours are a great way to support indie booksellers and get my readers acquainted with the stores who really support my work, creating lifelong relationships between bookstores and the communities they serve.

I hope you’ll come out to see me on this trip! What’s more: if you don’t see your city on the list below, don’t despair: I’ve got three more books coming out in the next 12 months and I’m going on the road with all of them, so there’s a good chance I’ll see you in the future even if I miss you this time around.

Here’s where you can catch me:

Los Angeles:

I’m speaking at the LA Times Festival of Books this weekend (4/22–23).

https://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/schedule/

Sat at 12, I’m doing a panel called “Covering Silicon Valley” with Douglas Rushkoff, Winddance Twine, moderated by Wendy Lee from the LA Times.

Sun at 11, I’m signing for California Book Club at booth 111.

Sun at 12:30, I’m doing a panel called “The Accidental Detective” with Alex Segura, Margot Douaihy and SJ Rozan.

San Diego:

I’ll be at Myseterious Galaxy with Sarah Gailey on 4/25:

https://www.mystgalaxy.com/event/42523Doctorow

Burbank:

I’ll be at Dark Delicacies on 4/26:

https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2873/Wed%2C_Apr_26th_6pm%3A_Red_Team_Blues%3A_A_Martin_Hench_Novel_HB.html#

San Francisco:

I’ll be at the San Francisco Public Library with Annalee Newitz on 4/30:

https://sfpl.org/events/2023/04/30/author-cory-doctorow-red-team-blues

PDX:

I’ll be at the Powell’s in Cedar Hills with Andy Baio on 5/2:

https://www.powells.com/book/red-team-blues-martin-hench-1-9781250865847/2-1

Mountain View:

I’ll be at the Books, Inc with Mitch Kapor on 5/5:

https://www.booksinc.net/event/cory-doctorow-books-inc-mountain-view

Berkeley:

I’ll be at the Bay Area Bookfest with Glynn Washington on 5/6:

https://www.baybookfest.org/session/cory-doctorow/

Vancouver:

On 5/10 I’m doing an afternoon keynote for Open Source Summit:

https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-summit-north-america/

And that evening I’ll be at Massy Arts with Sean Cranbury:

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/red-team-blues-cory-doctorow-in-conversation-with-sean-cranbury-tickets-608877016547

Calgary:

I’ll be at Wordfest with Peter Hemminger on 5/11:

https://wordfest.com/2023/event/wordfest-presents-cory-doctorow/

Gaithersburg:

I’ll be at the Gaithersburg Book Festival on 5/20:

https://www.gaithersburgbookfestival.org/featured_author/cory-doctorow/

DC:

I’m keynoting Public Knowledge’s Emerging Tech conference on 5/22:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/emerging-tech-tickets-600582126307

Toronto:

I’ll be on stage with Ron Deibert, Dave Bidini and Nancy Olivieri for WEPFest on 5/23:

https://www.westendphoenix.com/shop/wepfest-spring-fundraiser

Hay:

I’m speaking at the HowTheLightGetsIn festival on 28–29/5:

On May 28, I’m on a panel called “The AI Enigma” with Joshua Bach and Mazviita Chirimuuta:

https://howthelightgetsin.org/events/the-ai-enigma-12147

On May 29, I’m on a panel called “The Danger and Desire of the Frontier” with Nolen Gertz and Esther Dyson:

https://howthelightgetsin.org/events/the-danger-and-desire-of-the-frontier-12246

Oxford:

I’ll be at Blackwell with Tim Harford on 29/5:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cory-doctorow-red-team-blues-with-tim-harford-tickets-574673793787

Nottingham:

I’ll be at Waterstones with Christian Reilly on 30/5:

https://www.waterstones.com/events/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/nottingham

Manchester:

I’ll be at Waterstones with Ian Forrester on 31/5:

https://www.waterstones.com/events/in-conversation-with-cory-doctorow/manchester-deansgate

London:

I’m delivering the Peter Kirstein Lecture for UCL on 1/6:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/peter-kirstein-lecture-2023-featuring-cory-doctorow-registration-539205788027

Edinburgh:

 I’m speaking at Cymera with Ian McDonald and Nina Allan on 3/6:

https://www.cymerafestival.co.uk/cymera23-events/2023/4/4/connection-interrupted-with-nina-allan-cory-doctorow-and-ian-mcdonald

London:

I’m speaking at the British Library with Baroness Martha Lane Fox on 5/6:

https://www.bl.uk/events/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow-techno-thriller

Berlin:

I’m keynoting Re:publica on 7/6:

https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp23-keynote-von-cory-doctorow-rebecca-giblin-kreative-arbeitsmaerkte-und-monopole

[Image ID: The Red Team Blues tour schedule.]

[mostlysignssomeportents]

To save the news, ban surveillance ads

Tonight (May 31) at 6:30PM, I’m at the MANCHESTER Waterstones with my novel Red Team Blues, hosted by Ian Forrester.

Tomorrow (Jun 1), I’m giving the Peter Kirstein Lecture for UCL Computer Science in LONDON.

Then it’s Edinburgh, London, and Berlin!

Big Tech steals from the news, but what it steals isn’t content — it steals money. That matters, because if we create pseudo-copyrights over the facts of the news, or headlines, or snippets to help news companies bargain with tech companies, we make the news partners with the tech companies, rather than watchdogs.

How does tech steal money from the news? Lots of ways! One important one: tech steals ad revenue. 51% of every ad dollar gets gobbled up by tech companies — primarily the cozy, collusive ad-tech duopoly of Google/Facebook (AKA Googbook). If we can shatter the market power of the concentrated ad-tech industry, news companies would go back to getting 80–90% of the ad revenue their reporting generated, which would pay for more reporting.

There’s lots to like about fixing ads. For one thing, a fair ad marketplace would benefit all news reporting, not just the largest news companies — which are dominated by private equity-backed chains and right-wing billionaires who have repeatedly shown that any additional revenues will go to pay shareholders, not more reporters. Fair ads would also provide an income for reporters who strike out on their own, covering local politics or specific beats, without making themselves sharecroppers for Big Media.

One way to fix ads would be to break up the ad-tech “stacks.” Googbook both operate impossibly conflicted ad-placement businesses in which they bargain with themselves on behalf of both advertisers and publishers, with the winners always being the tech companies. The AMERICA Act from Senator Mike Lee would force ad giants to divest themselves of business units that create conflicts of interest. It’s popular, bipartisan legislation — and I do mean bipartisan; its backers include Elizabeth Warren and Ted Cruz! I wrote about the AMERICA Act and the role it will play in saving news from tech for EFF’s Deeplinks Blog last week:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-shatter-ad-tech

This week, I’ve got a followup on Deeplinks about another important way to unrig the ad market: banning surveillance ads:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

Even if we break up the ad-tech stacks, ads will still be bad for the news — and for the public. That’s because the dominant form of digital ads is “behavioral advertising” — the ad-tech sector’s polite euphemism for ads based on spying. You know these ads: you search for shoes and then every website you land on is plastered in shoe ads.

Surveillance ads require a massive, multi-billion-dollar surveillance dragnet, one that tracks you as you physically move through the world, and digitally, as you move through the web. Your apps, your phone and your browser are constantly gathering data on your activities to feed the ad-tech industry.

This data is incredibly dangerous. There’s so much of it, and it’s so loosely regulated, that every spy, cop, griefer, stalker, harasser, and identity thief can get it for pennies and use it however they see fit. The ad-tech industry poses a risk to protesters, to people seeking reproductive care, to union organizers, and to vulnerable people targeted by scammers.

Ad-tech maintains the laughable pretense that all this spying is consensual, because you clicked “I agree” on some garbage-novella of impenatrable legalese that no one — not even the ad-tech companies’ lawyers — has ever read from start to finish. But when people are given a real choice to opt out of digital spying, they do. Apple gave Ios users a one-click opt-out of in-app tracking and 96% of users clicked it (the other 4% must have been confused — or on Facebook’s payroll). The decision cost Facebook $10b in the first year. You love to see it:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/02/facebook-says-apple-ios-privacy-change-will-cost-10-billion-this-year.html

But here’s the real punchline: Apple blocked Facebook from spying on its customers, but Apple kept spying on them, just as invasively as Facebook had, in order to target them with Apple’s own ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

The thing that stops companies from spying on us isn’t the strength of their character, it’s the discipline imposed by regulation and competition — the fear that they’ll get fined more than they make from spying, and the fear that they’ll lose so much business from spying that they’ll end up in the red.

Which is why we need a legal ban on ads, not mere platitudes on billboards advertising companies’ “respect” for our privacy. The US is way overdue for a federal privacy law with a private right of action, which would let you and me sue the companies who violated it, even if no public prosecutor was willing to go to bat for us:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/01/you-should-have-right-sue-companies-violate-your-privacy

A privacy law that required companies to get your affirmative, enthusiastic, ongoing, specific, informed consent to gather and process your personal data would end surveillance ads forever. Despite the self-serving nonsense the ad-tech industry serves up about people “liking relevant ads,” no one wants to be spied on. 96% of Ios users don’t lie.

A ban on surveillance ads wouldn’t just serve the public, it would also save the news. The alternative to surveillance ads is context ads: ads based on what a reader is reading, rather than what that reader was doing. Context-based ad marketplaces ask, “What am I bid for this Pixel 6 user in Boise who is reading about banana farming?” instead of “What am I bid for this 22 year old man who recently searched for information about suicidal ideation and bankruptcy protection?”

Context ads perform a little worse than surveillance ads — by about 5%:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/29/taken-in-context/#creep-me-not

So presumably advertisers won’t pay as much for context ads as they do for behavioral targeting. But that doesn’t mean that the news will lose money. Because context ads favor publishers over ad-tech platforms — no publisher will ever know as much about internet users as spying ad-tech giants do, but no tech company will ever know as much about a publisher’s content as the publisher does.

Behavioral ad marketplaces have high barriers to entry, requiring troves of surveillance data on billions of internet users. They are naturally anticompetitive and able to command a much higher share of each ad dollar than a contextual ad service (which would have much more competiition) could.

On top of that: if behavioral advertising was limited to people who truly consented to it, 96% of users would never see an ad!

So contextual ads will show up for more users, and more of the money they generate will land in news publishers’ pockets. If context ads fetch less money per ad, the losses will be felt by ad-tech companies, not publishers.

Finally: publishers who join the fight against surveillance ads won’t be alone — they’ll be joining with a massive, popular movement against commercial surveillance. The news business is — and always has been — a niche subject, of burning interest to publishers, reporters, and a small minority of news junkies. The news on its own is a small fry in policy debates. But when it comes to killing surveillance ads, the news has a class alliance with the mass movement for privacy, and together, they’re a force to reckon with.

My article on killing surveillance ads is part three of an ongoing, five-part series for EFF on how we save the news from tech. The introduction, which sets out the whole series, is here:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

The final two parts will come out over the next two weeks, and then we’re going to publish the whole thing as a PDF that suitable for sharing. Watch this space!

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Manchester, Edinburgh, London, and Berlin!

[Image ID: EFF's banner for the save news series; the word 'NEWS' appears in pixelated, gothic script in the style of a newspaper masthead. Beneath it in four entwined circles are logos for breaking up ad-tech, ending surveillance ads, opening app stores, and end-to-end delivery. All the icons except for 'ending surveillance ads' are greyed out.]

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/31/context-ads/#class-formation

Image: EFF https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

CC BY 3.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

Tonight (May 31) at 6:30PM, I’m at the MANCHESTER Waterstones with my novel Red Team Blues, hosted by Ian Forrester.

Tomorrow (Jun 1), I’m giving the Peter Kirstein Lecture for UCL Computer Science in LONDON.

Then it’s Edinburgh, London, and Berlin!

#20yrsago Theme park of the chariots of the Gods https://web.archive.org/web/20060207043240/http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=105&sid=1918331

#20yrsago How is an IRC channel like a Caribbean street-corner? https://web.archive.org/web/20030605122526/http://www.healthhacker.com/biella/rope.txt

#10yrsago Northern Ireland builds a Potemkin Village for the G8 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/recession-out-of-the-picture-as-fermanagh-puts-on-a-brave-face-for-g8-leaders-1.1409112

#10yrsago Usury in the UK https://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/may/31/oft-criticised-ineffectual-payday-loans-policing

#10yrsago Linda Stone on attention, computers, and education https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/05/linda-stone-on-maintaining-focus-in-a-maddeningly-distractive-world/276201/

#5yrsago Congresswoman Diane Black [R-TN] blames school shootings on “pornography” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/diane-black-porn-school-gun-violence_n_5b0d6634e4b0568a880ede65

#5yrsago My science fiction story about EFF’s proposed jailbreaking exemption https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/05/eff-presents-cory-doctorows-science-fiction-story-about-our-jailbreaking-petition

#5yrsago Tell your parents: Trump is lying to them about Medicare https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/senior-advocates-say-new-draft-guide-to-medicare-distorts-facts-heres-what-you-need-to-know

#5yrsago Leaked memos reveal the deep divisions within Google over Pentagon contract https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/technology/google-project-maven-pentagon.html

#5yrsago Governments all over the world buy spy products that let them track and eavesdrop on global cellphones, especially US phones https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/how-spies-can-use-your-cellphone-to-find-you--and-eavesdrop-on-your-calls-and-texts-too/2018/05/30/246bb794-5ec2-11e8-a4a4-c070ef53f315_story.html

#5yrsago Amazon bars Australians from shopping on its non-Aussie sites to put pressure on the government to rescind tax rule https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/amazon-to-block-its-us-website-for-aussie-shoppers-over-new-gst-rules-20180531-p4zikr.html

#5yrsago Telegram: ever since Russia’s blocking demand, Apple has prevented us from updating our app https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/31/17412396/telegram-apple-app-store-app-updates-russia

#5yrsago Elon’s Basilisk: why exploitative, egomaniacal rich dudes think AI will destroy humanity https://www.documentjournal.com/2018/04/the-existential-paranoia-fueling-elon-musks-fear-of-ai/

#5yrsago Uganda enacts unenforceable, ridiculous anti-“gossip” internet tax https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/31/17412960/uganda-law-tax-gossip-social-media

#5yrsago Count your bees with a Raspberry Pi and machine learning https://matpalm.com/blog/counting_bees/

#5yrsago No, seriously, THIS is the mission patch for Google’s drone warfare AI contract with the Pentagon https://www.jwz.org/blog/2018/05/happy-fun-algorithmic-warfare-cross-functional-team/

#5yrsago Sweden’s notorious copyright troll said they’d sue, but if you ignore them, they just go away https://torrentfreak.com/legal-blackmail-zero-cases-brought-against-alleged-pirates-in-sweden-180525/

#1yrago How John Deere leverages repair-blocking into gag orders https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/31/dealers-choice/#be-a-shame-if-something-were-to-happen-to-it

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Manchester, Edinburgh, London, and Berlin!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

Today (Jun 1) at 2PM, I’m in London to give the annual UCL Comptuer Science Peter Kirstein Lecture.

On Saturday (Jun 3) at 1:30PM, I’m in Edinburgh for the Cymera Festival on a panel with Nina Allen and Ian McDonald.

Then it’s back to London, then Berlin!

#20yrsago Can Mozilla live without Netscape? https://www.salon.com/2003/06/02/unholy_alliance/

#20yrsago FCC loosens media concentration, screws America https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/02/business/fcc-votes-to-relax-rules-limiting-media-ownership-2003060292418873791.html

#20yrsago Kids spend six years recreating Raiders of the Lost Ark http://legacy.aintitcool.com/node/15348

#15yrsago Canada’s DMCA: a guide to the likely talking points https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2008/06/unofficial-cdmca-backgrounder-2/

#15yrsago Canadian DMCA will take $500/download from your kids’ college fund https://web.archive.org/web/20080604015130/http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2989/125/

#10yrsago Gezi protester kicking away teargas cannister https://occupygezipics.tumblr.com/post/51912890789/a-young-woman-kicks-back-the-tear-gas

#10yrsago How markets allow people to violate their moral codes https://web.archive.org/web/20130607154129/https://www.uni-bonn.de/Press-releases/markets-erode-moral-values

#5yrsago Youtubers with millions of followers are dropping out, citing stress and burnout from algorithm kremlinology https://www.polygon.com/2018/6/1/17413542/burnout-mental-health-awareness-youtube-elle-mills-el-rubius-bobby-burns-pewdiepie

#5yrsago Leaked document shows Trump officials planning to force Americans to spend $311m-$11.8b/year to keep unprofitable coal and nuclear energy plants from shutting https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-01/trump-orders-perry-to-stem-coal-nuclear-power-plant-closures-jhw8smiv?leadSource=uverify wall

#5yrsago Citing bad publicity and internal dissent, Google announces it won’t renew contract to supply AI for US military drones https://gizmodo.com/google-plans-not-to-renew-its-contract-for-project-mave-1826488620

#5yrsago Tax-funded charter schools textbooks deny evolution, teach human-dinosaur cohabitation, endorse slavery and indigenous genocide https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2018/06/01/private-schools-curriculum-downplays-slavery-says-humans-and-dinosaurs-lived-together/

#5yrsago Amid wage stagnation, corporate leaders declare the end of annual raises triggered by increased profitability https://www.axios.com/2018/05/27/broad-based-pay-rises-retraining-automation-executives

#5yrsago Former Tory chancellor takes over newspaper, sells “money-can’t buy” coverage to Uber, Google and others https://web.archive.org/web/20180715000000*/https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/james-cusick/george-osborne-s-london-evening-standard-promises-positive-news-coverage-to-uber-goo

#5yrsago Stanford prof Niall Ferguson conspired with campus Republicans to do oppo research on students who opposed invited eugenicist speaker https://stanforddaily.com/2018/05/31/emails-between-ferguson-scr-reveal-opposition-research-against-ocon-prompt-fergusons-resignation-from-cardinal-conversations-leadership-role/

#5yrsago Southwest wouldn’t let mixed-race family fly until mom “proved” parenthood https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2018/05/29/she-attempted-to-fly-with-her-biracial-son-southwest-asked-for-proof-she-was-his-mother/

#1yrago House sales are cratering but inventory is soaring https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/02/residential-casino/#asset-or-shelter

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Edinburgh, London, and Berlin!