Aanikh Kler

COO AND CO-FOUNDER, SURF

THE WORLD OF ONLINE DATA COLLECTION feels shrouded in mystery—and, often, that’s by design. “You’d be shocked how many browser extensions exist to change the theme on your Google Chrome, or make your mouse clicker pink, and are actually tracking what people do on the internet without telling them,” says Aanikh Kler. “It’s quite a widespread problem.” But Surf, a privacy-first browser extension created by Kler’s co-founder, Swish Goswami, is all about transparency. According to Kler, the business serves both enterprises (via protecting them from the legal ramifications of collecting data illegally) and consumers (via making sure that their data is not being tracked without consent). For example, Surf is working with Riot Games—the American developer of League of Legends—for the LOL World Championship, the world’s largest esports event. Surf will ask for participant and audience feedback and data in exchange more audience for trip audiences prizes Surf’s to revenue-generation next to is improve enterprise (for much that for year’s example, relevant we’re more event). their clients able engaged promotions an formatting, to all-expenses opportunities. use drive the and to and re-target data these interested paid create collected “The initiatives than proverbial the Riot Vancouver-based a general isn’t pond: the audience,” only since big company it was fish explains founded in Surf’s has Kler. worked in 2019, with NFL. “We’re Amazon, really EA, trying Netflix, to the push NBA this and idea the of responsible more enterprises,” data collection says Kler, into adding more that and new features that allow businesses to run their own independent data programs are on the horizon. “Our hope is to continue building products that allow these large companies to get the data they need, but to do so in a way that is not only compliant with privacy standards, but also equitable for the consumer.” —A.H.