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Google Is Already in Our Nests – By Jeff Stibel

February 5, 2014 By Lennon Cole

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Last month, Google bought Nest Labs, a company that makes smart home thermostats and smoke detectors. While a few applauded the acquisition (mostly geeks and tech investors), much of the reporting centered on privacy fears and predictions of doomsday advertising scenarios. It’s just the latest story exploiting our collective fear of the growing “internet of things” and distrust of the companies who leverage it.

Read the whole article where it originally appeared.

Photo Credit:plantronicsgermany, Flickr

The World’s Report Card: Is B The New A? – by Jeff Stibel

November 19, 2013 By Lennon Cole

On Friday we found out that Standard & Poor’s downgraded France’s credit rating. “Debt grade cut from AA+ to AA due to weak economic growth, high unemployment and government spending constraints,” the Telegraph reported. These issues are all too familiar to American readers, many of whom still recall the sting of having our own credit rating downgraded from AAA to AA+.

While the United States has always fancied itself in a league above any individual European country, this news should serve as a reminder that we’re not doing so badly on a relative basis. In fact, compared to the rest of the world’s economies, the United States ranks…

Read the full article on LinkedIn where it originally appeared.

Shutdown Has No Silver Lining – MarketWatch Interview with Jeff Stibel

October 2, 2013 By Lennon Cole

Some small businesses are already being hard hit by the closure, says Jeff Stibel of D&B Credibility Corp.

Listen to the full interview at MarketWatch.

Privacy in the Age of Big Data

August 16, 2013 By Catherine Shalloe

There’s a frightening proposition that the mysterious conglomeration called Big Data will nullify our concept privacy. But in reality, the idea of “privacy” has been eroding for a long time within both the digital and physical world.

But is this really a bad thing? Author Jeff Stibel doesn’t think so. “This is a great thing! It’s great for society, it’s great for business, it’s great for consumers,” he says.

Big data is just a massive amount of small data bundled together and sorted into relevant information. And this information provides great power and intelligence, which allows governments to keep us safe and businesses to produce more of what we want. Isn’t that a win-win?

To hear more about Stibel’s take on big data’s deletion of privacy and why it can be a good thing, get your copy of Breakpoint today!

(CC photo by: Purple Phoenix)