I find it interesting that some people have no idea all the data that they are giving for free in a lot of the services they use everyday. Obviously some of the bigger ones being like Facebook, which can be considered a mecca of all storing houses for information actually does a beautiful way and an enriching content view for the individual user. Another company that does this well is Amazon who also keeps records of all the sites visited by an IP address. What is surprising is only 5% of online shoppers actually buy anything when visiting a website.
What are the trade-offs? In many cases your privacy but they are also taking a way our ability to make decisions for ourselves. Who is to say that I actually want to see that coupon for Home Goods or the special they have on Nike sneakers. With all this over analyzation of your buying and surfing activity how can we protect ourselves? Just like in anything there are plenty of things that you can do to make your data safer. One of the most important of all is to back up all files on your computer as often as possible on an external hard drive. Also using security softwares like Norton and other popular spyware and virus protectors make for a great defense on all the trojans out there.
Information is so readily available these days its really scary. The best thing to do is to be mindful of the sites your going on and try not to put to much information out there unless absolutely necessary.
Other Resources:
McFarland, Josh (2011), “The Data-Fueled Display Ad Revival” Customer Data(August 8), <http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/73027.html?wlc=1315962063>.
Miyazaki, Anthony (2011), "Advertisers Know What You Do... Is Behavioral Targeting Really That Bad?"<http://e-marketingforsensiblefolk.blogspot.com/2011/09/behavioral-targeting.html>
Shinder, Deb (2006), "10 things you can do to protect your data" <http://www.techrepublic.com/article/10-things-you-can-do-to-protect-your-data/6061927>
I completely agree with you. It's scary the amount of volunteered information people give out to the world. Just take a look at Facebook. Facebook is dedicated to servicing people who wish to provide their life stories in chronological order for others to see. Sure there are some privacy settings but those can either be avoided or the person themselves will just volunteer the information. The negatives out weigh the positives if you really take this into consideration. For example, the pro is, that you will see advertisements for things that you may want to purchase. The cons many but most importantly, why would you want them to have so much information on you that you are put into a class demographic and they know more about your personality than most of your close friends. Always be careful when you surf the web and/or volunteer information.
ReplyDelete