I Read Data Cartels and So Should You

June 25, 2026

Right now I’m finishing up reading Data Cartels by Sarah Lamdan, a slim and mind-boggling book about all the ways data conglomerates are ruining our lives. It was recommended to me by one of my new colleagues who attended a webinar about how companies like Lexis are involved in ICE operations. I just started working at a big law firm doing what I have been describing as “research grunt work". I am pulling articles. I am pulling dockets. It has been a simple and honestly pretty satisfying way of dipping my toe back into librarianship. But oh, how the horrors persist.

I spend all day alternating between Lexis, Westlaw, and Bloomberg to get the attorneys their very urgent materials that I am sure they are utilizing in a way that makes the exorbitant costs of these platforms worth it. But I’m not trying to make that my concern. They ask for the stuff, I give them the stuff. As a recovering public librarian who quit dramatically over a First Amendment dispute, it all seems blissfully simple.

But holy hell this shit is never simple. Some days I wish I had never gone down this rabbit hole. Why did I have to care about democracy? Why did I think it was so damn important to promote open access to information? Why can’t I just be a normal person who ignores the news and doesn’t think about publishing and isn’t worried about AI. It sounds so nice. Is this you? Is it SO nice?

Unfortunately, as Sarah Lamdan has reminded me, I got into these things for all the right reasons. Because it’s fucking important and honestly, after reading her book, I really think we could fix a lot about what’s going on in America if we fixed our information ecosystems. They sit at the foundation of everything. And when they’re rotten - and BOY, OH BOY are they rotten - we rot too.

Take local news as an isolated example - we gutted our funding for local reporting, turned ownership of these channels over to a small number of corporations with an agenda, and then left everyone to fend for themselves. And what do we get from that? The ungodly hydra that is NextDoor and Facebook groups, where people can indulge their worst impulses, spread misinformation, and get rewarded for it. It undermines trust in actually good information, gives people the illusion that they’re informed, and creates a platform for lies to spread unchecked. We can’t even blame people for taking this route - what else are you supposed to do when faced with a paywall while living in an information swamp? (I can blame you for being racist freaks. Stop being racist freaks on Nextdoor.)

The solution that Lamdan presents is so simple and elegant - antitrust regulation for tech companies. Insert mind blown emoji here. Just as we did during the Gilded Age, she notes, we can stop tech companies from forming data monopolies that encapsulate all of our information resources -academic publishing, private data, financial data, news - into a few sticky hands. We know we can do it now because we’ve done it before. It’s a solution so beautiful it brought a single tear to my eye. If it weren’t for a lack of political will, lobbying by the companies, and ennui from the general public, it could have been done yesterday. It should have been done yesterday.

I’m not sure what my part in all of this is yet, but for now it’s yelling about it on a blog that no one reads (that I certainly did not draft in a Google Doc…). But I’m a little more equipped to understand the problem after reading Lamdan’s excellent book and I think you should too. It’s available from Stanford University Press or your local library. Thanks, Sarah - I appreciate the tools to expand my thinking on this and the hopeful outlook that things can change.

Reading: Data Cartels by Sarah Lamdan! And Ulysses by James Joyce (yeah, I know, eye roll, that's a future blog)

Watching: It's summer so my part time job is watching both Love Island USA and Love Island UK. Also Hacks Season 5 is incredible.

Eating: Reheated partial breakfast burrito from Sunday with fruit salad.

Listening: Humans podcast - "Puzzle-Maker Wyna Liu's Just a Little Mean," Handsome podcast - "John Stamos asks about first concerts"