Harry’s threat kicked the Renegade Reporters’ investigation into high gear. Maya volunteered to learn more about how companies track personal data online. Her brother was pleased with how his interview came out, so he was happy to help. Brielle offered to dig into the Van Ness Media software itself. She poked around the apps at school and at home to figure out what, exactly, users agreed to and how their personal information was stored. That left Ash to research Maria Van Ness. She spent the week reading articles, watching interviews, and learning as much as she could about the Van Ness Media founder and CEO.
On Saturday afternoon, they all met at Maya’s house to share what they had learned.
Ash walked up just as Brielle was being dropped off. “I came this close to stepping in dog poo on my way here,” Ash said with a shudder.
“Someone on my street put up a sign that says Pick up after your pet,” Brielle said. “Then the dog pooped right in front of it.”
The door to Maya’s house opened just wide enough for the girls to see Maya’s head. She looked left and right, then hurried her friends inside and closed the door quickly behind them.
“The dog poo bandit is still on the loose,” Ash reported.
But Maya clearly had bigger concerns. “Did you bring your phones?” she asked.
“Yeah, of course,” Ash said, taking hers out of her jacket pocket.
“Turn them off,” Maya said.
“What?” Brielle said, making it very clear that she wouldn’t.
“They’re tracking devices,” Maya said. “Please turn them off?”
“I probably shouldn’t,” Ash said. “My dads want me to leave it on for emergencies.”
“Can you at least turn off the location settings, then?” Maya pleaded.
“Okay,” Ash said slowly, “but I don’t know how.”
“Here.” Brielle took Ash’s phone, moved her thumb around the screen, and handed it back. “I’m leaving mine on, though,” she said, “because this just seems extra.”
Maya was clearly unhappy, but she didn’t argue.
“Maya,” Ash said, “are you okay?”
“Not really.” Maya started walking upstairs. “I’m glad I don’t have a smartphone. This tracking stuff is creeping me out.”
“Um, yeah, we can tell,” Brielle said, following her.
In all the years Ash had been friends with Maya, she’d never seen her this nervous. The feeling was contagious, like a yawn. It made Ash’s legs tremble as she lowered herself onto Maya’s bed. “Tell us what you found out.”
“Yeah, you go first,” Brielle said, sitting cross-legged on the floor. “Gum?”
Ash took a piece, but Maya shook her head. She got a notebook from a drawer of her nightstand and joined Ash on the bed. “Basically,” she began, “people are spying on us all the time.”
“That’s what your brother showed you guys, right?” Brielle said, unimpressed. “That companies track what everyone does online, and they use it to make detailed profiles about people?”
“Yes, but there’s so much more,” Maya said. “The GPS in your phone knows that you went from your house to my house just now, and so do any apps that have access to your location—that’s why I said to turn it off. If any apps have access to your microphone, they could be recording what we say right now, without us knowing. It doesn’t even matter if you don’t have a smartphone, like me. Smart speakers do it too. And there are cameras in public places and in smart doorbells recording people, and then facial recognition software can tell you who those people are.”
“Let’s use that footage to catch the dog poo bandit!” Ash joked, trying to lighten the mood.
But Maya kept it heavy. “Every single thing you do is being recorded, everywhere. Like, when you’re inside a store, there are these things called ‘Bluetooth beacons’ that interact with your phone to track what you do, even if your Bluetooth is off! Like, if you spend a long time by the potato chips, you might start seeing ads for potato chips.”
Brielle tapped her hands on the floor. “I was in the supermarket with my granddad yesterday, and he couldn’t decide which yogurt to buy, regular or Greek. Then, when we were waiting to check out, he all of a sudden got a coupon for Greek yogurt on his phone!”
“For real?” Ash asked.
“Mm-hmm. We thought it was a crazy coincidence.”
“Did you buy Greek yogurt?” Maya asked nervously.
“Yeah! We had regular in the cart, but I ran back to switch it so we could use the coupon.”
This was too much for Maya. Her body deflated like a balloon until she was lying flat on her back, her hands over her face.
“It could have just been a crazy coincidence,” Ash tried, chewing her gum slowly.
Maya shook her head behind her hands. “It wasn’t.”
“Well,” Brielle said, “it is a little creepy, but it’s also good. I mean, my dad wouldn’t be able to get anywhere without GPS. And my granddad saved a dollar on that yogurt.”
Maya peeked through her fingers. “A dollar? You’ll let companies track your every move for one dollar?”
“They’re not tracking my every move,” Brielle said, rolling her eyes. “Well, I actually don’t really know, because I tried to read the privacy policy for Van Ness Movie Maker, and it was impossible to understand. It was like one of those reading comprehension tests, only ten times longer, and a million times harder.” Brielle took out her phone—which made Maya wince—and pulled up a file she’d saved. “Like, listen to this. It’s on page thirteen, which isn’t even the last page.” She placed her gum on her pinky and then began to read. “ ‘In respect of processing of Personal Data detailed in this Privacy Policy, such processing is necessary for the purposes of a legitimate interest pursued by Van Ness Media, and we have assessed that such interests are not overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the persons to whom the Personal Data relates.’ I mean, huh?”
The looks on Ash’s and Maya’s faces expressed the same reaction. Ash had no idea what that meant. She asked for Brielle’s phone and reread that paragraph to herself a couple times. “Legitimate interest pursued by Van Ness Media,” she mumbled.
“Legitimate was one of our spelling words last year,” Maya remembered. “It means valid, reasonable, or fair.”
Ash read the sentence to herself again. “So, I think this means that Van Ness Media can use our personal data for whatever they decide is a good reason.”
“Whatever they decide is a good reason,” Maya repeated. “We get no say.”
“Well, we sort of do,” Brielle pointed out, putting her gum back in her mouth. “We have to click the box to accept the terms and conditions when we sign up for the program or app.”
“Oh,” Ash said. “Is that what that’s for?” Whenever she wanted to use something new on her computer or phone, a screen would pop up with a long document in small type. She always just scrolled to the bottom of it and hit the accept button without reading any of it. Sometimes there was no document, just a link to one, and Ash always hit accept without bothering to click the link. “What happens if you don’t click the box to accept?” she asked Brielle.
Brielle shrugged. “Then you can’t use the app.”
“See? That’s unfair,” Maya said. “It’s all or nothing. Either you let them collect your personal information and do whatever they want with it, or you can’t use the app at all.”
“Good point,” Ash agreed. “They get to make the rules. If there were a button that let you use the app without giving up your personal information, I bet a lot of people would click it. What do the companies use our information for, anyway?”
“Ads, mostly,” Maya said hopelessly.
“Honestly?” Brielle said slowly. “I don’t see why that’s so bad.”
Maya stared at her like she’d said she didn’t see why drowning kittens was so bad.
But Brielle just leaned back and popped her gum. “Ads are everywhere anyway, right? They always have been. All this data stuff just helps the ads get to people who might want to see them. It’s pretty cool tech, actually. I’d rather see ads for things I might want to buy than ads for things I don’t care about. And yeah, maybe they know some stuff about me, but so what? It’s not like I have something to hide.”
“Sometimes you do,” Ash pointed out. “What if Harry was secretly recording our conversation right now? He could use it to steal our story again.”
“We’re not talking about Harry,” Brielle argued. “We’re talking about computers at big companies that record our info, turn it into ones and zeroes, and spit out ads. Who cares?”
Maya, speechless, looked at Ash to back her up. So did Brielle. But Ash was caught in the middle. On the one hand, Brielle had a point. Ads were all around, and more relevant ads could work in everyone’s favor, like they did when Ash wanted gray boots, or when Dev wanted to let high schoolers know about a new study guide.
On the other hand, Abba had recently made Ash pick out a stick of deodorant for herself, which was embarrassing enough while it was happening. What if Van Ness Media had noticed that her specific location dot had spent time in the deodorant aisle of CVS and sent her a coupon for another stick? What if it said “We know your armpits are smelly!” and it popped up while she was using a Van Ness program at school, where other kids could see it?
Thankfully, she remembered that that specific nightmare could never happen—because of a fact that should reassure Maya too. “Van Ness Media doesn’t allow any advertising in their programs! There isn’t a single ad in any app. Maria Van Ness mentions that in basically every interview she does. It’s one of their biggest selling points to schools.” Ash took out her phone and tried to pull up the links to interviews she’d read. But she’d saved the links in Van Ness Writer, and the app wouldn’t load.
“Huh,” Ash said, showing her friends the screen. “It won’t let me open Van Ness Writer unless I turn my location settings back on.”
Maya gasped. “See? They want to track your location.”
“So what?” Brielle said, getting annoyed. “They don’t allow ads.”
“Okay,” Ash said loudly, the key question becoming clear. “They don’t allow ads, but they’re still recording our location—and probably everything else we do—to keep profiles on us. Why?”
They all sat there in silence for a good thirty seconds. Then Brielle took out her phone and began to scroll through the Movie Maker privacy policy. Maya paged through printouts of articles Dev had sent her. Ash pulled up the photo of Maria Van Ness with her dog in Federal Hill Park. Ironically, it was soon blocked by a popup ad for Van Ness Media. VAN NESS MEDIA: POWERED BY KIDS’ IMAGINATIONS.
Something popped for Ash and it wasn’t her gum. Powered by kids’ imaginations. What if that wasn’t just a slogan? What if kids’ imaginations—and their notes, and their creations, and their physical locations—were powering Van Ness Media’s rapid-fire growth?
“Remember when we were interviewing Dev,” Ash said slowly, “and he didn’t want us to get any of his analytics on camera? He said he didn’t want his customers to think he was sharing their personal information—or selling it.”
“Oh yeah,” said Maya. “There are companies that buy data from websites and sell it to advertisers and stuff. They’re called”—she looked through her notes until she found it—“data brokers. Data brokers buy and sell our personal information without us knowing.”
“And it’s worth a lot of money?” Brielle asked.
“Tons.”
“Enough to pay for a fancy headquarters in Harbor East with coffee and Ping-Pong and yoga rooms?” Ash said.
Maya’s eyes widened. Brielle cocked her head, like they’d finally hit on something interesting.
“Van Ness Media doesn’t let any advertising come in,” Ash said, piecing her thoughts together.
Maya picked up those pieces and completed the connection. “But they could still let their users’ personal information go out.”
“So that means . . .” said Ash.
“Van Ness Media . . .” said Brielle.
“Is selling our personal details to the highest bidder!” announced Maya.
That’s it! They’d got it. And they could report it long before Harry. Ash felt triumphant. Until she replayed the news in her mind, letting it sink in.
Then she felt sick.