Cambridge Analytica is Shutting Down

Maybe not actually. They were a subsidiary of SCL Group, which according to Wikipedia shut down yesterday as well. Something awful will exist in its place, like Palantir Technologies.

Nevermind about them not re-incarnating: http://www.businessinsider.com/cambridge-analytica-executive...

bitwize2• 8 years ago

HN truncated the link to say "Ac..." and I thought it was a link to the page for Accenture, which changed its name from Andersen Consulting to get away from the bad reputation associated with the Andersen name.

jonhendry183• 8 years ago

The new firm is called Emerdata. It even involves Eric Prince of Blackwater, along with Mercer and the rest of the scum and villainy.

notacoward• 8 years ago

I sincerely doubt that Cambridge Analytica is really shutting down. Rather, I expect the same principals will continue doing the same things for the same customers under a new name within a year. That's just a name change.

See also: Blackwater -> Xe -> Academi

skort• 8 years ago

Emerdata.

http://www.businessinsider.com/cambridge-analytica-executive...

gremlinsinc2• 8 years ago

Of course that's a thing. Corporate corruption is way too rampant. CEOs should serve time when breaking laws and be barred from serving as a top level exec in any capacity unless they're the founder and even then they should have stipulations like a parole officer who's an accountant/auditor and checks their books every few months.

jonhendry183• 8 years ago

It even involved Erik Prince of Blackwater infamy, brother of Betsy Devos.

thephyber2• 8 years ago

That was exactly the scenario I first thought of when I saw this headline.

From what I remember, the researcher who started collecting Facebook data has already tried to scrub his connections with Cambridge Analytica and it's UK parent company from his CV and research history.

c3534l• 8 years ago

Exactly. They're abandoning the brand. Those in charge aren't changing jobs and industries.

pesmhey• 8 years ago

If your brand's no good anymore, change the name.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbbZc2pab9k

lordnacho• 8 years ago

Same thought here. What assets are this kind of firm really made of, if not knowledge workers? Are there a lot of databases that will be shut down, rather than sold to some other entity? Or just pirated? Apart from that, what is it? Office furniture?

I would suspect the workers will regroup, some of them having had their internal political status changed by the scandal, others holding the external relationships, and the business will go on in some shape.

InitialLastName• 8 years ago

My uncle is CIO of a law firm. We were discussing my company's inventory management system (we're an electronics manufacturer), and he made a point that's stuck with me: "90% of my inventory value walks out the door at the end of the day."

matt4077• 8 years ago

In business, it’s often possible to change the name and get the plausible deniability you need to continue.

In politics, any future venture by these people is going to have a difficult time. No candidate wants to be called out for employing anyone from CA’s core team now.

What’s also going to be really hard to shake is th litany of articles pointing out that CA actually failed pretty badly at achieving its promises. Just consider the “honey trap” offers they were making: if you actually own the secret sauce to influence elections with big data and machine learning and psycho ops... why go for the oldest, most shady trick in the book?

bitwize2• 8 years ago

Or Unbounded Solutions -> BrighterBrain.

sorokod• 8 years ago

Or perhaps CA ex-employees will join Facebook.

jacquesm• 8 years ago

This is just damage control. It should be easy enough to monitor the Linkedin profiles of everybody that claims they work there today to see where they end up. Two can play at that.

jahvo4• 8 years ago

Tech people are terrified of CA because CA shows them how deeply flawed their beloved liberal democracy is. They already suspected that but they swept it under the carpet, but now that they are forced to watch it because of this Facebook thing, it's time to shut everything down and shoot the messenger instead of shutting down the flawed system.

jimothywales2• 8 years ago

How does this have anything to do with "liberal democracy" besides your strange interpretation of the "system"?

jahvo4• 8 years ago

People are easily manipulable. This was the case since forever, but tech has amplified it, and tech has given us the data to back up how easy it is to manipulate people.

cirgue• 8 years ago

You don't think this is more of a function of human greed and ambition rather than a consequence of liberal democracy? I seriously doubt that the use of personal data for political gain would be particularly less common under literally any other configuration of government.

RIMR2• 8 years ago

Wow, that's some pretty incredible mental gymnastics.

A right-wing data-mining and misinformation disseminating machine does not demonstrate any such flaws in "liberal democracy".

If anything, it just shows how sleazy conservative Republicans are, and how far they'll go to get power.

grolimpio• 8 years ago

No, this is not a consequence of "liberal democracy", this happens a lot more in non democratic governments.

If you want to put it this way, which I think it's wrong, this would be a consequence of libertarian conservatism, where private companies would spy on groups of people and try to manipulate them, instead of the government.

spadros• 8 years ago

https://outline.com/Kah74V for the uninitiated.

Cambridge Analytica is Shutting Down

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