Rupert Murdoch is about to gain the power to deliver targeted propaganda to millions of customers
Peers issue warning over media mogul’s bid to buy TV network
Carole Cadwalladr
One of the “largest and most sophisticated datasets in the country” – including the TV viewing, internet and phone records of 13 million households – could be misused for political purposes if Rupert Murdoch is allowed to proceed with his plan to buy out Sky, six members of the House of Lords claim in a letter to the Observer.
The government’s decision on whether to allow the takeover of the broadcaster by Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox may come as early as next week, but a cross-party group of peers led by the film-maker David Puttnam – who was involved in drafting the 2003 Telecommunications Act – have joined forces to highlight what they say is a significant oversight with potentially huge ramifications. Fox currently owns 39% of Sky.
The letter says that “Sky possess what is probably the UK’s largest and most sophisticated privately held domestic consumption database”, able to “track the leisure time preferences and behaviour” of a large proportion of the population of the UK and Ireland.But the safety and security of that data is threatened, the letter says, if “passed into foreign control”. It warns that should it “fall into the hands of an owner with an appetite for political leverage, the temptations and opportunities for misuse become very great indeed”.
Puttnam said: “The deal would give unregulated access to this huge database from which an enormous amount of insight could be extracted. With that information, people can be individually targeted with advertisements personalised to them. And we have this unbelievable situation where we have no regulation of political advertisements, so a party can tell any lie they want.
“I do see this as a very grave threat to our democratic process. What is incredible is this hasn’t been considered at any point. If you look at the asset value of Sky, you suddenly go, ‘Well, hang on there, here’s a bit of unbelievable value but it hasn’t been included in the price’.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/15/sky-fox-rupert-murdoch-david-puttnam-database
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