Be careful what you click

Adam Tanner will speak about his book, "What Stays in Vegas," at the AJC Decatur Book Festival at 5 p.m. Sunday at the Marriott's Ballroom C. For more details, click here.

Adam Tanner started out as a reporter in communist Europe, and has now written a book about the new information-gatherers: American big data. He will speak about the book, "What Stays in Vegas" (PublicAffairs, $27.99), at the AJC Decatur Book Festival at 5 p.m. Sunday.

We talked to Tanner about his book.

Q: You have some anecdotes about individuals, like the guy who discreetly bought some sex toys for his wife, then found himself the target of lurid mailings after they sold his information. But in general you decided to tell the story through the lens of the companies that do it — why?

A: I was always wondering, from my days in the field in the communist world, who were the people who were gathering data? Because you cannot see them in that context. And so in the American consumer context, it's often hard to figure out who's behind this website of this company, can I get someone on the phone to figure out what their policy is. I wanted to tell their stories, to understand their motivation.

Q: Is there any difference or similarity between the two times and places?

A: I don't want to draw the parallel too much. All of these changes that have allowed the easy gathering of data in the Internet age — so much of that is great, has improved our lives. And the vast majority of people working in these sectors are good, hardworking people. But at the same time, there are consequences of this drive to gather ever more data.

Q: Like what?

A: Many of the companies we shop from sell information about us to other companies. Some of the lists you can buy are, for example, men who suffer from erectile dysfunction, or women who've bought porn in the last six months. Or high school students who are gay — there are lists sold that way.

Q: You got remarkable access to insiders in businesses who are mining our data, like Gary Loveman, the casino boss.

A: His model is, I'm going to gather a huge amount of data about you, what you do in my casinos — if you agree to join his loyalty program. But in this case, he's going to give you a lot in return, in terms of free things, if you're an important customer. In the olden days, it might have been as simple as, "You've got class, Kid, here's a ticket for dinner," right? Gary Loveman's innovation, that he's glad to speak about, is to scientifically measure all of this. And you can choose whether or not you're going to be part of that data sharing.

Q: Do you think there’s any pattern about why people decided to speak to you or not to speak to you?

A: One guy explained it like this. He was doing something called fingerprinting — using a technique to follow you on the Web, which gives you less control to opt out of it (unlike cookies, which can be blocked or deleted). He said, "Look, my company does use fingerprinting; no, we don't advertise it; no, we don't want this on the front page. But it's something we need to do to compete." So I think a lot of people are wary that if the public really knew the extent of the data gathering, there would be some unease about it.

My thinking is, the companies who in the long term are the most open about their data are the ones who will succeed the most.

Q: What was the most surprising thing you learned in the course of researching your book?

A: The extent overall of how much data is collected about us all at all turns and how many companies are doing it.

Q: What do you hope readers take away from it?

A: My bottom line is different people will have different comfort levels in what they want to share, and they should share accordingly.

Note: Responses have been edited for length.