Trafficking Data by Aynne Kokas

Author:Aynne Kokas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2022-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Home Appliances

Most people are not in the habit of monitoring whether they are consenting to data gathering when they eat, but some connected home devices even know when you open your refrigerator door. Beyond posing a conundrum for avid snackers, this kind of monitoring can also provide such data points as how many people might be at home at a given time, when mealtimes are, and which foods people eat. This issue of consumer data gathering on devices has particularly interesting data trafficking implications when companies change hands.

In August 2018, I served as the scholar liaison for a group of congressional staffers traveling to China on a delegation through the National Committee on US-China Relations. While we were in Qingdao, our hosts from the Qingdao Municipal Committee of the Chinese Communist Party invited our group to visit the consumer products company Haier, a firm best known in the United States for making inexpensive mini refrigerators.

Haier emerged from the state-run Qingdao Refrigerator General Factory as part of the first wave of liberalization in the 1980s.21 Haier’s chairman and CEO, Zhang Ruimin, who took over Haier’s leadership in 1984, has articulated clear plans for building a data platform and leveraging the IoT as part of a turnaround strategy for the electronics firm.22 Haier had its initial public offering in 1993, listing Class A shares—shares for retail investors—on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. In 2018, the firm listed Class D shares on Germany’s China Europe International Exchange, or CEINEX, a joint venture of Chinese and German stock exchanges.23

Zhang’s role underscores Haier’s position as a key player in the CCP’s long-term strategic planning. In addition to being the company chairman and CEO, he was a delegate to the 19th National Congress of the CCP and an alternate delegate as far back as the 16th National Congress in 2002.24 Zhang’s long-standing role in CCP leadership, paired with Haier’s origins in the state-run sector, highlights the difference between this firm and other global appliance firms, such as Samsung, Electrolux, and Whirlpool.

Jet-lagged and exhausted, our group visited the Haier headquarters to learn about refrigerator manufacturing. We quickly recognized that Haier had transcended its refrigerator company origins. Instead of mini refrigerators, we saw connected home appliances with sensors to surveil users’ daily lives. As we toured kitchen mock-ups studded with stainless steel devices, our hosts told us that Haier was now a tech company. The firm’s executives went on to note that not only was Haier’s brand growing in the United States, but the company had also acquired a US legacy brand, GE Appliances, one of the oldest and most trusted consumer brands in the United States.

In June 2016, Haier purchased GE Appliances for US$5.4 billion.25 Together, Haier and GE Appliances comprise the world’s largest consumer appliance company.26 The acquisition specifically targeted growth through the IoT.27 Since purchasing GE Appliances, Haier has made good on this goal by delivering an entire line of connected consumer electronics called GE Smart Appliances.28 Data is gathered via the appliances and stored on apps developed by Haier US Appliance Solutions, Inc.

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