Nonfiction Book Awards Gold Medal The path forward to rein in online surveillance, AI, and tech monopolies Technology is a gift and a curse. The five Big Tech companies―Meta, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google―have built innovative products that improve many aspects of our lives. But their intrusiveness and our dependence on them have created pressing threats to our civil rights, economy, and democracy. Coming from an extensive background building Silicon Valley-based tech startups, Tom Kemp eloquently and precisely weaves together the threats posed by Big Tech: the overcollection and weaponization of our most sensitive data - the problematic ways Big Tech uses AI to process and act upon our data - the stifling of competition and entrepreneurship due to Big Tech's dominant market position This richly detailed book exposes the consequences of Big Tech's digital surveillance, exploitative use of AI, and monopolistic and anticompetitive practices. It offers actionable solutions to these problems and a clear path forward for individuals and policymakers to advocate for change. By containing the excesses of Big Tech, we will ensure our civil rights are respected and preserved, our economy is competitive, and our democracy is protected. “The technology industry has revolutionized how we learn, work, and communicate with others in this digital age. But the vibrancy of our society and democracy depends on decentralizing our digital economy across all our communities. Furthermore, appropriate guardrails on technology are needed to ensure that people are treated with dignity and not commodified, AI does not cause harm or discriminate, and we have level playing fields for the next generation of start-ups to compete on. So, it is very timely to see Tom Kemp’s book, Containing Big Tech , lay out a clear and comprehensive vision for the reforms needed to bring accountability to the tech sector.” —Ro Khanna, member of Congress “Tom Kemp skillfully shows how Big Tech’s overriding focus on maximizing user engagement has led us to a world of wide-scale algorithmic amplification of disinformation and extremism. If you want to know how Big Tech is threatening our democracy and contributing to society’s hyperpolarization, Kemp’s book should be at the top of your reading list.” —Alexander Vindman, former director for European Affairs for the United States National Security Council “Tom Kemp is a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur who was on the front lines with me in helping get the California Privacy Rights Act passed in 2020—the most comprehensive privacy law in the United States. Anyone looking to take action against Big Tech’s often insidious reach will learn much from Kemp’s timely analysis of technology’s impact on our freedoms, society, and democracy.” —Alastair Mactaggart, co-author of the California Privacy Rights Act, chairman of Californians for Consumer Privacy “Tom Kemp’s Containing Big Tech carefully directs the reader to the real problem of tech: a business model whose features and norms routinely expose children to personal and commercial exploitation. His analysis that privacy equals child safety is one that I applaud, and both businesses and politicians should take urgent action. The sector cannot build its new world order on the backs of children. Instead, we need respectful and detoxified systems that put children’s well-being at the heart of design.” —Baroness Beeban Kidron, chair of the 5Rights Foundation “Tom Kemp's Containing Big Tech is very eloquently written and explains how we got to the point where our precise location and movements are constantly tracked and sold to unknown players globally. Kemp's thoughtful and detailed book shows us a clear path forward to ensure consumers have the right to privacy and how the excesses of today's technology behemoths can be contained and reined in.” —Rick Arney, co-author of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and Proposition 24, the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) “Tom Kemp’s prescient Containing Big Tech arrives just as AI threatens to amplify all of the excesses of the tech industry—the consolidation of markets, the manipulation of people, the assault on privacy, and the loss of control over the technologies deployed. Containing Big Tech is essential reading to understand the challenges ahead and the solutions to pursue.” —Marc Rotenberg, president and founder of the Center for AI and Digital Policy “In Containing Big Tech , Tom Kemp presents a compelling case for reining in Big Tech, illustrating through powerful facts and narratives the unique threats from digital surveillance to privacy, addiction and exploitation of users, and competition and innovation. The impact on all of us, and our children, is both chilling and profound. A must-read to understand the threats and challenges posed by Big Tech on society.” —Nita Farahany, author of The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the A