What Stays in Vegas: The World of Personal Data-Lifeblood of Big Business-and the End of Privacy as We Know It

by Adam Tanner

Overview

The greatest threat to privacy today is not the NSA, but good-old American companies. Internet giants, leading retailers, and other firms are voraciously gathering data with little oversight from anyone.

In Las Vegas, no company knows the value of data better than Caesars Entertainment. Many thousands of enthusiastic clients pour through the ever-open doors of their casinos. The secret to the company's success lies in their one unrivaled asset: they know their clients intimately by tracking the activities of the overwhelming majority of gamblers. They know exactly what games they like to play, what foods they enjoy for breakfast, when they prefer to visit, who their favorite hostess might be, and exactly how to keep them coming back for more.

Caesars' dogged data-gathering methods have been so successful that they have grown to become the world's largest casino operator, and have inspired companies of all kinds to ramp up their own data mining in the hopes of boosting their targeted marketing efforts. Some do this themselves. Some rely on data brokers. Others clearly enter a moral gray zone that should make American consumers deeply uncomfortable.

We live in an age when our personal information is harvested and aggregated whether we like it or not. And it is growing ever more difficult for those businesses that choose not to engage in more intrusive data gathering to compete with those that do. Tanner's timely warning resounds: Yes, there are many benefits to the free flow of all this data, but there is a dark, unregulated, and destructive netherworld as well.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781610396394
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	05/10/2016
Edition description:	First Trade Paper Edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Adam Tanner writes about the business of personal data. He is a fellow at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University and was previously a Nieman fellow there. Tanner has worked for Reuters News Agency as Balkans bureau chief (based in Belgrade, Serbia), as well as San Francisco bureau chief, and has had previous postings in Berlin, Moscow, and Washington, DC. He also contributes to Forbes and other magazines.

Table of 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

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

Editorial Reviews

10/06/2014
Tanner takes readers beyond the headlines of national government snooping to unveil how private businesses are gathering personal data on multitudes of individuals every day. Tanner uses casinos and their practices to scaffold his study because they were some of the early users of customer data but his focus is much broader. Companies that most Americans have never heard of gather information from name, address and email to purchasing patterns, sexual orientation and mug shots. He repeats that these corporations generally "use our data for legitimate business purposes, essentially to market their products" without much discussion of whether marketing of this intensity on this scale is truly innocuous. He does acknowledge that personal data aggregation is not always used in the consumer's best interest. While much data gathering happens online via "cookies" that are possible to control, other activities such as gathering data from mobile devices involves no consent at all. He concludes by offering an appendix with various tools and strategies for controlling the flow of personal data while acknowledging that no single practice is a silver bullet but he offers no discussion of the potential harm posed by the possibility of hackers. Nevertheless, this should prove to be a valuable look at our startling lack of privacy. Agent: Alice Martell, Martell Agency (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Although What Stays in Vegas starts with insights gained from casino data, the book is even more interesting when it delves into the occasionally questionable practices of other businesses that use personal data for profit.” Capital Times, (Madison (WI)

“Data may be to the 21st century economy what oil was to the 20th, a hugely valuable asset essential to economic life and often a source of conflict. This entertaining yet deeply informative book is a great guide to what has, or hasn't, happened and to what lies ahead.” Lawrence Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, & President Emeritus and Charles W. Eliot University Professor of Harvard University

“[A] very readable account about our disappearing privacy…What Stays in Vegas is both readable and entertaining, and in a similar manner as Michael Lewis's writings, Tanner provides interesting stories about the people and companies that are now so directly involved in our personal lives.” Winnipeg Free Press

“I would recommend the Tanner book with the excellent title of What Stays in Vegas.” Inside Higher Ed

“A compelling read on what companies are doing, how they get our information, what they do with it, and how some business approaches are more respectful of privacy than others” Irish Times

“Tanner illustrates his arguments with a traditional, vivid example from the business and entertainment world: Caesars Palace in Las Vegas…Tanner weaves this example into a gripping account of the modern direct-marketing industry… In this fascinating look at the dazzling if suffocating domain of digital information gathering, Tanner concludes that it is returning us to a world of farms and villages, where intimate details of everyone's lives were public knowledge.”Kirkus Reviews, *starred* review

One of the Washington Post's 50 Notable Nonfiction Books of 2014

“[A] masterpiece...Tanner's book is one of the best business books written this year; in fact, it is one of the best business books in this century. It reminds me of Joe Nocera's first book, A Piece of the Action, in that it combines detailed knowledge of his subject matter with an excellent writing style, countless personal interviews and observations of events.” Don McNay, Huffington Post

“What Stays in Vegasis an engrossing, story-packed takedown of the data industry…What Stays in Vegas offers a narrative that transforms Big Data from spreadsheet-dull to a racy read people will pay attention to.” Financial Times

“The book provides an insider's look at the business of assembling, packaging and reselling data, and it uses glittery Las Vegas to show that kind of information at work.” Dina Temple-Raston, Washington Post

“Mr. Tanner's engaging book is realistic.” Marc Levinson, Wall Street Journal

"Although ‘What Stays in Vegas' starts with insights gained from casino data, the book is even more interesting when it delves into the occasionally questionable practices of other businesses that use personal data for profit.” Kim Ukura, Madison (WI) Capital Times

From the Publisher

★ 2014-07-14
Since the 1990s, the avalanche of personal information we voluntarily reveal and which computers easily harvest has endlessly intrigued observers, the latest being Tanner, a fellow at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University. The author delivers the obligatory announcement that "big data" means the death of privacy, but not before backing it with plenty of entertaining evidence. Tanner illustrates his arguments with a traditional, vivid example from the business and entertainment world: Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Gamblers happily sign up for Caesars' loyalty programs, which track their play (these days, nobody puts an actual coin into a slot machine) and deliver a steady stream of discounts, complimentary meals and rooms, and even free chips, all carefully targeted to encourage return visits. Tanner weaves this example into a gripping account of the modern direct-marketing industry, formerly reliant on the phone book to deluge us with junk mail. Although less lionized than the founders of Facebook, Google or Twitter, countless other entrepreneurial computer nerds have founded scores of enterprises devoted to assembling, packaging and reselling data from government, school, police, hospital, insurance and commercial records. Businesses are addicted, mostly due to the fact that only a minority of consumers objects to giving up any possibility of remaining anonymous. Merely knowing a zip code, gender and birthdate provides enough information to identify nearly 90 percent of the population. Tanner emphasizes that no one expected privacy until mass urbanization began 200 hundred years ago; in fact, the Constitution doesn't even directly address it. The author also warns against the vast possibilities for abuse and provides a chapter on countering it. In this fascinating look at the dazzling if suffocating domain of digital information gathering, Tanner concludes that it is returning us to a world of farms and villages, where intimate details of everyone's lives were public knowledge.

Kirkus Reviews